Robert Falconer Part 44

Nothing would be our G.o.d. If we come from G.o.d, nothing is more natural, nothing so natural, as to want him, and when we haven't got him, to try to find him.--What if he should be in us after all, and working in us this way? just this very way of crying out after him?'

'Mr. Ericson,' cried Robert, 'dinna say ony mair 'at ye dinna believe in G.o.d. Ye duv believe in 'im--mair, I'm thinkin', nor onybody 'at I ken, 'cep', maybe, my grannie--only hers is a some queer kin' o' a G.o.d to believe in. I dinna think I cud ever manage to believe in him mysel'.'

Ericson sighed and was silent. Robert remained kneeling by his bedside, happier, clearer-headed, and more hopeful than he had ever been. What if all was right at the heart of things--right, even as a man, if he could understand, would say was right; right, so that a man who understood in part could believe it to be ten times more right than he did understand!

Vaguely, dimly, yet joyfully, Robert saw something like this in the possibility of things. His heart was full, and the tears filled his eyes. Ericson spoke again.

'I have felt like that often for a few moments,' he said; 'but always something would come and blow it away. I remember one spring morning--but if you will bring me that bundle of papers, I will show you what, if I can find it, will let you understand--'

Robert rose, went to the cupboard, and brought the pile of loose leaves.

Ericson turned them over, and, Robert was glad to see, now and then sorted them a little. At length he drew out a sheet, carelessly written, carelessly corrected, and hard to read.

'It is not finished, or likely to be,' he said, as he put the paper in Robert's hand.

'Won't you read it to me yourself, Mr. Ericson?' suggested Robert.

'I would sooner put it in the fire,' he answered--'it's fate, anyhow. I don't know why I haven't burnt them all long ago. Rubbish, and diseased rubbish! Read it yourself, or leave it.'

Eagerly Robert took it, and read. The following was the best he could make of it:

Oh that a wind would call From the depths of the leafless wood!

Oh that a voice would fall On the ear of my solitude!

Far away is the sea, With its sound and its spirit-tone: Over it white clouds flee, But I am alone, alone.

Straight and steady and tall The trees stand on their feet; Fast by the old stone wall The moss grows green and sweet; But my heart is full of fears, For the sun shines far away; And they look in my face through tears, And the light of a dying day.

My heart was glad last night, As I pressed it with my palm; Its throb was airy and light As it sang some spirit-psalm; But it died away in my breast As I wandered forth to-day-- As a bird sat dead on its nest, While others sang on the spray.

O weary heart of mine, Is there ever a truth for thee?

Will ever a sun outshine But the sun that shines on me?

Away, away through the air The clouds and the leaves are blown; And my heart hath need of prayer, For it sitteth alone, alone.

And Robert looked with sad reverence at Ericson,--nor ever thought that there was one who, in the face of the fact, and in recognition of it, had dared say, 'Not a sparrow shall fall on the ground without your Father.' The sparrow does fall--but he who sees it is yet the Father.

And we know only the fall, and not the sparrow.

CHAPTER XII. THE GRANITE CHURCH.

The next day was Sunday. Robert sat, after breakfast, by his friend's bed.

'You haven't been to church for a long time, Robert: wouldn't you like to go to-day?' said Ericson.

'I dinna want to lea' you, Mr. Ericson; I can bide wi' ye a' day the day, an' that's better nor goin' to a' the kirks in Aberdeen.'

'I should like you to go to-day, though; and see if, after all, there may not be a message for us. If the church be the house of G.o.d, as they call it, there should be, now and then at least, some sign of a pillar of fire about it, some indication of the presence of G.o.d whose house it is. I wish you would go and see. I haven't been to church for a long time, except to the college-chapel, and I never saw anything more than a fog there.'

'Michtna the fog be the torn-edge like, o' the cloody pillar?' suggested Robert.

'Very likely,' a.s.sented Ericson; 'for, whatever truth there may be in Christianity, I'm pretty sure the ma.s.s of our clergy have never got beyond Judaism. They hang on about the skirts of that cloud for ever.'

'Ye see, they think as lang 's they see the fog, they hae a grup o'

something. But they canna get a grup o' the glory that excelleth, for it's not to luik at, but to lat ye see a' thing.'

Ericson regarded him with some surprise. Robert hastened to be honest.

'It's no that I ken onything aboot it, Mr. Ericson. I was only bletherin' (talking nonsense)--rizzonin' frae the twa symbols o' the cloud an' the fire--kennin' nothing aboot the thing itsel'. I'll awa' to the kirk, an' see what it's like. Will I gie ye a buik afore I gang?'

'No, thank you. I'll just lie quiet till you come back--if I can.'

Robert instructed Shargar to watch for the slightest sound from the sick-room, and went to church.

As he approached the granite cathedral, the only one in the world, I presume, its stern solidity, so like the country and its men, laid hold of his imagination for the first time. No doubt the necessity imposed by the unyielding material had its share, and that a large one, in the character of the building: whence else that simplest of west windows, seven lofty, narrow slits of light, parted by granite shafts of equal width, filling the s.p.a.ce between the corner b.u.t.tresses of the nave, and reaching from door to roof? whence else the absence of tracery in the windows--except the severely gracious curves into which the mullions divide?--But this cause could not have determined those towers, so strong that they might have borne their granite weight soaring aloft, yet content with the depth of their foundation, and aspiring not. The whole aspect of the building is an outcome, an absolute blossom of the northern nature.

There is but the nave of the church remaining. About 1680, more than a century after the Reformation, the great tower fell, destroying the choir, chancel, and transept, which have never been rebuilt. May the reviving faith of the nation in its own history, and G.o.d at the heart of it, lead to the restoration of this grand old monument of the belief of their fathers. Deformed as the interior then was with galleries, and with Gavin Dunbar's flat ceiling, an awe fell upon Robert as he entered it. When in after years he looked down from between the pillars of the gallery, that creeps round the church through the thickness of the wall, like an artery, and recalled the service of this Sunday morning, he felt more strongly than ever that such a faith had not reared that cathedral.

The service was like the church only as a dead body is like a man. There was no fervour in it, no aspiration. The great central tower was gone.

That morning prayers and sermon were philosophically dull, and respectable as any after-dinner speech. Nor could it well be otherwise: one of the favourite sayings of its minister was, that a clergyman is nothing but a moral policeman. As such, however, he more resembled one of Dogberry's watch. He could not even preach h.e.l.l with any vigour; for as a gentleman he recoiled from the vulgarity of the doctrine, yielding only a few feeble words on the subject as a sop to the Cerberus that watches over the dues of the Bible--quite unaware that his notion of the doctrine had been drawn from the aeneid, and not from the Bible.

'Well, have you got anything, Robert?' asked Ericson, as he entered his room.

'Nothing,' answered Robert.

'What was the sermon about?'

'It was all to prove that G.o.d is a benevolent being.'

'Not a devil, that is,' answered Ericson. 'Small consolation that.'

'Sma' eneuch,' responded Robert. 'I cudna help thinkin' I kent mony a tyke (dog) that G.o.d had made wi' mair o' what I wad ca' the divine natur' in him nor a' that Dr. Soulis made oot to be in G.o.d himsel'. He had no ill intentions wi' us--it amunt.i.t to that. He wasna ill-w.i.l.l.y, as the bairns say. But the doctor had some sair wark, I thoucht, to mak that oot, seein' we war a' the children o' wrath, accordin' to him, born in sin, and inheritin' the guilt o' Adam's first trespa.s.s. I dinna think Dr. Soulis cud say that G.o.d had dune the best he cud for 's. But he never tried to say onything like that. He jist made oot that he was a verra respectable kin' o' a G.o.d, though maybe no a'thing we micht wuss.

We oucht to be thankfu' that he gae's a wee blink o' a chance o' no bein' brunt to a' eternity, wi' nae chance ava. I dinna say that he said that, but that's what it a' seemed to me to come till. He said a hantle aboot the care o' Providence, but a' the gude that he did seemed to me to be but a haudin' aff o' something ill that he had made as weel. Ye wad hae thocht the deevil had made the warl', and syne G.o.d had pitten us intil 't, and jist gied a bit wag o' 's han' whiles to haud the deevil aff o' 's whan he was like to destroy the breed a'thegither. For the grace that he spak aboot, that was less nor the nature an' the providence. I cud see unco little o' grace intil 't.'

Here Ericson broke in--fearful, apparently, lest his boyfriend should be actually about to deny the G.o.d in whom he did not himself believe.

'Robert,' he said solemnly, 'one thing is certain: if there be a G.o.d at all, he is not like that. If there be a G.o.d at all, we shall know him by his perfection--his grand perfect truth, fairness, love--a love to make life an absolute good--not a mere accommodation of difficulties, not a mere preponderance of the balance on the side of well-being. Love only could have been able to create. But they don't seem jealous for the glory of G.o.d, those men. They don't mind a speck, or even a blot, here and there upon him. The world doesn't make them miserable. They can get over the misery of their fellow-men without being troubled about them, or about the G.o.d that could let such things be. [7] They represent a G.o.d who does wonderfully well, on the whole, after a middling fashion. I want a G.o.d who loves perfectly. He may kill; he may torture even; but if it be for love's sake, Lord, here am I. Do with me as thou wilt.'

Had Ericson forgotten that he had no proof of such a G.o.d? The next moment the intellectual demon was awake.

'But what's the good of it all?' he said. 'I don't even know that there is anything outside of me.'

'Ye ken that I'm here, Mr. Ericson,' suggested Robert.

'I know nothing of the sort. You may be another phantom--only clearer.'

'Ye speik to me as gin ye thocht me somebody.'

'So does the man to his phantoms, and you call him mad. It is but a yielding to the pressure of constant suggestion. I do not know--I cannot know if there is anything outside of me.'