ADVENTURES
Grannie’s first action every evening, the moment the boys entered the room, was to glance up at the clock, that she might see whether they had arrived in reasonable time. This was not pleasant, because it admonished Robert how impossible it was for him to have a lesson on his own violin so long as the visit to Bodyfauld lasted. If they had only been allowed to sleep at Rothieden, what a universe of freedom would have been theirs! As it was, he had but two hours to himself, pared at both ends, in the middle of the day. Dooble Sanny might have given him a lesson at that time, but he did not dare to carry his instrument through the streets of Rothieden, for the proceeding would be certain to come to his grandmother’s ears. Several days passed indeed before he made up his mind as to how he was to reap any immediate benefit from the recovery of the violin. For after he had made up his mind to run the risk of successive mid-day solos in the old factory—he was not prepared to carry the instrument through the streets, or be seen entering the place with it.
But the factory lay at the opposite corner of a quadrangle of gardens, the largest of which belonged to itself; and the corner of this garden touched the corner of Captain Forsyth’s, which had formerly belonged to Andrew Falconer: he had had a door made in the walls at the point of junction, so that he could go from his house to his business across his own property: if this door were not locked, and Robert could pass without offence, what a north-west passage it would be for him! The little garden belonging to his grandmother’s house had only a slight wooden fence to divide it from the other, and even in this fence there was a little gate: he would only have to run along Captain Forsyth’s top walk to reach the door. The blessed thought came to him as he lay in bed at Bodyfauld: he would attempt the passage the very next day.
With his violin in its paper under his arm, he sped like a hare from gate to door, found it not even latched, only pushed to and rusted into such rest as it was dangerous to the hinges to disturb. He opened it, however, without any accident, and passed through; then closing it behind him, took his way more leisurely through the tangled grass of his grandmother’s property. When he reached the factory, he judged it prudent to search out a more secret nook, one more full of silence, that is, whence the sounds would be less certain to reach the ears of the passers by, and came upon a small room, near the top, which had been the manager’s bedroom, and which, as he judged from what seemed the signs of ancient occupation, a cloak hanging on the wall, and the ashes of a fire lying in the grate, nobody had entered for years: it was the safest place in the world. He undid his instrument carefully, tuned its strings tenderly, and soon found that his former facility, such as it was, had not ebbed away beyond recovery. Hastening back as he came, he was just in time for his dinner, and narrowly escaped encountering Betty in the transe. He had been tempted to leave the instrument, but no one could tell what might happen, and to doubt would be to be miserable with anxiety.
He did the same for several days without interruption—not, however, without observation. When, returning from his fourth visit, he opened the door between the gardens, he started back in dismay, for there stood the beautiful lady.
Robert hesitated for a moment whether to fly or speak. He was a Lowland country boy, and therefore rude of speech, but he was three parts a Celt, and those who know the address of the Irish or of the Highlanders, know how much that involves as to manners and bearing. He advanced the next instant and spoke.
‘I beg yer pardon, mem. I thoucht naebody wad see me. I haena dune nae ill.’
‘I had not the least suspicion of it, I assure you,’ returned Miss St. John. ‘But, tell me, what makes you go through here always at the same hour with the same parcel under your arm?’
‘Ye winna tell naebody—will ye, mem, gin I tell you?’
Miss St. John, amused, and interested besides in the contrast between the boy’s oddly noble face and good bearing on the one hand, and on the other the drawl of his bluntly articulated speech and the coarseness of his tone, both seeming to her in the extreme of provincialism, promised; and Robert, entranced by all the qualities of her voice and speech, and nothing disenchanted by the nearer view of her lovely face, confided in her at once.
‘Ye see, mem,’ he said, ‘I cam’ upo’ my grandfather’s fiddle. But my grandmither thinks the fiddle’s no gude. And sae she tuik and she hed it. But I faun’t it again. An’ I daurna play i’ the hoose, though my grannie’s i’ the country, for Betty hearin’ me and tellin’ her. And sae I gang to the auld fact’ry there. It belangs to my grannie, and sae does the yaird (garden). An’ this hoose and yaird was ance my father’s, and sae he had that door throu, they tell me. An’ I thocht gin it suld be open, it wad be a fine thing for me, to haud fowk ohn seen me. But it was verra ill-bred to you, mem, I ken, to come throu your yaird ohn speirt leave. I beg yer pardon, mem, an’ I’ll jist gang back, and roon’ by the ro’d. This is my fiddle I hae aneath my airm. We bude to pit back the case o’ ‘t whaur it was afore, i’ my grannie’s bed, to haud her ohn kent ‘at she had tint the grup o’ ‘t.’
Certainly Miss St. John could not have understood the half of the words Robert used, but she understood his story notwithstanding. Herself an enthusiast in music, her sympathies were at once engaged for the awkward boy who was thus trying to steal an entrance into the fairy halls of sound. But she forbore any further allusion to the violin for the present, and contented herself with assuring Robert that he was heartily welcome to go through the garden as often as he pleased. She accompanied her words with a smile that made Robert feel not only that she was the most beautiful of all princesses in fairy-tales, but that she had presented him with something beyond price in the most self-denying manner. He took off his cap, thanked her with much heartiness, if not with much polish, and hastened to the gate of his grandmother’s little garden. A few years later such an encounter might have spoiled his dinner: I have to record no such evil result of the adventure.
With Miss St. John, music was the highest form of human expression, as must often be the case with those whose feeling is much in advance of their thought, and to whom, therefore, may be called mental sensation is the highest known condition. Music to such is poetry in solution, and generates that infinite atmosphere, common to both musician and poet, which the latter fills with shining worlds.—But if my reader wishes to follow out for himself the idea herein suggested, he must be careful to make no confusion between those who feel musically or think poetically, and the musician or the poet. One who can only play the music of others, however exquisitely, is not a musician, any more than one who can read verse to the satisfaction, or even expound it to the enlightenment of the poet himself, is therefore a poet.—When Miss St. John would worship God, it was in music that she found the chariot of fire in which to ascend heavenward. Hence music was the divine thing in the world for her; and to find any one loving music humbly and faithfully was to find a brother or sister believer. But she had been so often disappointed in her expectations from those she took to be such, that of late she had become less sanguine. Still there was something about this boy that roused once more her musical hopes; and, however she may have restrained herself from the full indulgence of them, certain it is that the next day, when she saw Robert pass, this time leisurely, along the top of the garden, she put on her bonnet and shawl, and, allowing him time to reach his den, followed him, in the hope of finding out whether or not he could play. I do not know what proficiency the boy had attained, very likely not much, for a man can feel the music of his own bow, or of his own lines, long before any one else can discover it. He had already made a path, not exactly worn one, but trampled one, through the neglected grass, and Miss St. John had no difficulty in finding his entrance to the factory.
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