He came out of stone walls upon an airy platform whence the spire ascended heavenwards. His conductor led upward still, and he followed, winding within a spiral network of stone, through which all the world looked in. Another platform, and yet another spire springing from its basement. Still up they went, and at length stood on a circle of stone surrounding like a coronet the last base of the spire which lifted its apex untrodden. Then Robert turned and looked below. He grasped the stones before him. The loneliness was awful.

  There was nothing between him and the roofs of the houses, four hundred feet below, but the spot where he stood. The whole city, with its red roofs, lay under him. He stood uplifted on the genius of the builder, and the town beneath him was a toy. The all but featureless flat spread forty miles on every side, and the roofs of the largest buildings below were as dovecots. But the space between was alive with awe — so vast, so real!

  He turned and descended, winding through the network of stone which was all between him and space. The object of the architect must have been to melt away the material from before the eyes of the spirit. He hung in the air in a cloud of stone. As he came in his descent within the ornaments of one of the basements, he found himself looking through two thicknesses of stone lace on the nearing city. Down there was the beast of prey and his victim; but for the moment he was above the region of sorrow. His weariness and his headache had vanished utterly. With his mind tossed on its own speechless delight, he was slowly descending still, when he saw on his left hand a door ajar. He would look what mystery lay within. A push opened it. He discovered only a little chamber lined with wood. In the centre stood something — a bench-like piece of furniture, plain and worn. He advanced a step; peered over the top of it; saw keys, white and black; saw pedals below: it was an organ! Two strides brought him in front of it. A wooden stool, polished and hollowed with centuries of use, was before it. But where was the bellows? That might be down hundreds of steps below, for he was half-way only to the ground. He seated himself musingly, and struck, as he thought, a dumb chord. Responded, up in the air, far overhead, a mighty booming clang. Startled, almost frightened, even as if Mary St. John had said she loved him, Robert sprung from the stool, and, without knowing why, moved only by the chastity of delight, flung the door to the post. It banged and clicked. Almost mad with the joy of the titanic instrument, he seated himself again at the keys, and plunged into a tempest of clanging harmony. One hundred bells hang in that tower of wonder, an instrument for a city, nay, for a kingdom. Often had Robert dreamed that he was the galvanic centre of a thunder-cloud of harmony, flashing off from every finger the willed lightning tone: such was the unexpected scale of this instrument — so far aloft in the sunny air rang the responsive notes, that his dream appeared almost realized. The music, like a fountain bursting upwards, drew him up and bore him aloft. From the resounding cone of bells overhead he no longer heard their tones proceed, but saw level-winged forms of light speeding off with a message to the nations. It was only his roused phantasy; but a sweet tone is nevertheless a messenger of God; and a right harmony and sequence of such tones is a little gospel.

  At length he found himself following, till that moment unconsciously, the chain of tunes he well remembered having played on his violin the night he went first with Ericson to see Mysie, ending with his strange chant about the witch lady and the dead man’s hand.

  Ere he had finished the last, his passion had begun to fold its wings, and he grew dimly aware of a beating at the door of the solitary chamber in which he sat. He knew nothing of the enormity of which he was guilty — presenting unsought the city of Antwerp with a glorious phantasia. He did not know that only upon grand, solemn, world-wide occasions, such as a king’s birthday or a ball at the Hôtel de Ville, was such music on the card. When he flung the door to, it had closed with a spring lock, and for the last quarter of an hour three gens-d’arme, commanded by the sacristan of the tower, had been thundering thereat. He waited only to finish the last notes of the wild Orcadian chant, and opened the door. He was seized by the collar, dragged down the stair into the street, and through a crowd of wondering faces — poor unconscious dreamer! it will not do to think on the house-top even, and you had been dreaming very loud indeed in the church spire — away to the bureau of the police.

  CHAPTER XXIV. DEATH.

  I need not recount the proceedings of the Belgian police; how they interrogated Robert concerning a letter from Mary St. John which they found in an inner pocket; how they looked doubtful over a copy of Horace that lay in his coat, and put evidently a momentous question about some algebraical calculations on the fly-leaf of it. Fortunately or unfortunately — I do not know which — Robert did not understand a word they said to him. He was locked up, and left to fret for nearly a week; though what he could have done had he been at liberty, he knew as little as I know. At last, long after it was useless to make any inquiry about Miss Lindsay, he was set at liberty. He could just pay for a steerage passage to London, whence he wrote to Dr. Anderson for a supply, and was in Aberdeen a few days after.

  This was Robert’s first cosmopolitan experience. He confided the whole affair to the doctor, who approved of all, saying it could have been of no use, but he had done right. He advised him to go home at once, for he had had letters inquiring after him. Ericson was growing steadily worse — in fact, he feared Robert might not see him alive.

  If this news struck Robert to the heart, his pain was yet not without some poor alleviation: — he need not tell Ericson about Mysie, but might leave him to find out the truth when, free of a dying body, he would be better able to bear it. That very night he set off on foot for Rothieden. There was no coach from Aberdeen till eight the following morning, and before that he would be there.

  It was a dreary journey without Ericson. Every turn of the road reminded him of him. And Ericson too was going a lonely unknown way.

  Did ever two go together upon that way? Might not two die together and not lose hold of each other all the time, even when the sense of the clasping hands was gone, and the soul had withdrawn itself from the touch? Happy they who prefer the will of God to their own even in this, and would, as the best friend, have him near who can be near — him who made the fourth in the fiery furnace! Fable or fact, reader, I do not care. The One I mean is, and in him I hope.

  Very weary was Robert when he walked into his grandmother’s house.

  Betty came out of the kitchen at the sound of his entrance.

  ‘Is Mr. Ericson — ?’

  ‘Na; he’s nae deid,’ she answered. ‘He’ll maybe live a day or twa, they say.’

  ‘Thank God!’ said Robert, and went to his grandmother.

  ‘Eh, laddie!’ said Mrs. Falconer, the first greetings over, ‘ane ‘s ta’en an’ anither ‘s left! but what for ‘s mair nor I can faddom. There’s that fine young man, Maister Ericson, at deith’s door; an’ here am I, an auld runklet wife, left to cry upo’ deith, an’ he winna hear me.’

  ‘Cry upo’ God, grannie, an’ no upo’ deith,’ said Robert, catching at the word as his grandmother herself might have done. He had no such unfair habit when I knew him, and always spoke to one’s meaning, not one’s words. But then he had a wonderful gift of knowing what one’s meaning was.

  He did not sit down, but, tired as he was, went straight to The Boar’s Head. He met no one in the archway, and walked up to Ericson’s room. When he opened the door, he found the large screen on the other side, and hearing a painful cough, lingered behind it, for he could not control his feelings sufficiently. Then he heard a voice — Ericson’s voice; but oh, how changed! — He had no idea that he ought not to listen.

  ‘Mary,’ the voice said, ‘do not look like that. I am not suffering. It is only my body. Your arm round me makes me so strong! Let me lay my head on your shoulder.’

  A brief pause followed.

  ‘But, Eric,’ said Mary’s voice, ‘there is one that loves you better than I do.’

  ‘If there is,’ returned Ericson, feebly, ‘he has sent his angel to deliver me.’

  ‘But you do believe in him, Eric?’

  The voice expressed anxiety no less than love.

  ‘I am going to see. There is no other way. When I find him, I shall believe in him. I shall love him with all my heart, I know. I love the thought of him now.’

  ‘But that’s not himself, my — darling!’ she said.

  ‘No. But I cannot love himself till I find him. Perhaps there is no Jesus.’

  ‘Oh, don’t say that. I can’t bear to hear you talk so,’

  ‘But, dear heart, if you’re so sure of him, do you think he would turn me away because I don’t do what I can’t do? I would if I could with all my heart. If I were to say I believed in him, and then didn’t trust him, I could understand it. But when it’s only that I’m not sure about what I never saw, or had enough of proof to satisfy me of, how can he be vexed at that? You seem to me to do him great wrong, Mary. Would you now banish me for ever, if I should, when my brain is wrapped in the clouds of death, forget you along with everything else for a moment?’

  ‘No, no, no. Don’t talk like that, Eric, dear. There may be reasons, you know.’

  ‘I know what they say well enough. But I expect Him, if there is a Him, to be better even than you, my beautiful — and I don’t know a fault in you, but that you believe in a God you can’t trust. If I believed in a God, wouldn’t I trust him just? And I do hope in him. We’ll see, my darling. When we meet again I think you’ll say I was right.’

  Robert stood like one turned into marble. Deep called unto deep in his soul. The waves and the billows went over him.

  Mary St. John answered not a word. I think she must have been conscience-stricken. Surely the Son of Man saw nearly as much faith in Ericson as in her. Only she clung to the word as a bond that the Lord had given her: she would rather have his bond.

  Ericson had another fit of coughing. Robert heard the rustling of ministration. But in a moment the dying man again took up the word. He seemed almost as anxious about Mary’s faith as she was about his.

  ‘There’s Robert,’ he said: ‘I do believe that boy would die for me, and I never did anything to deserve it. Now Jesus Christ must be as good as Robert at least. I think he must be a great deal better, if he’s Jesus Christ at all. Now Robert might be hurt if I didn’t believe in him. But I’ve never seen Jesus Christ. It’s all in an old book, over which the people that say they believe in it the most, fight like dogs and cats. I beg your pardon, my Mary; but they do, though the words are ugly.’

  ‘Ah! but if you had tried it as I’ve tried it, you would know better, Eric.’

  ‘I think I should, dear. But it’s too late now. I must just go and see. There’s no other way left.’

  The terrible cough came again. As soon as the fit was over, with a grand despair in his heart, Robert went from behind the screen.

  Ericson was on a couch. His head lay on Mary St. John’s bosom. Neither saw him.

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Ericson, panting with death, ‘a kiss in heaven may be as good as being married on earth, Mary.’

  She saw Robert and did not answer. Then Eric saw him. He smiled; but Mary grew very pale.

  Robert came forward, stooped and kissed Ericson’s forehead, kneeled and kissed Mary’s hand, rose and went out.

  From that moment they were both dead to him. Dead, I say — not lost, not estranged, but dead — that is, awful and holy. He wept for Eric. He did not weep for Mary yet. But he found a time.

  Ericson died two days after.

  Here endeth Robert’s youth.

  CHAPTER XXV. IN MEMORIAM.

  In memory of Eric Ericson, I add a chapter of sonnets gathered from his papers, almost desiring that those only should read them who turn to the book a second time. How his papers came into my possession, will be explained afterwards.

  Tumultuous rushing o’er the outstretched plains;

  A wildered maze of comets and of suns;

  The blood of changeless God that ever runs

  With quick diastole up the immortal veins;

  A phantom host that moves and works in chains;

  A monstrous fiction which, collapsing, stuns

  The mind to stupor and amaze at once;

  A tragedy which that man best explains

  Who rushes blindly on his wild career

  With trampling hoofs and sound of mailed war,

  Who will not nurse a life to win a tear,

  But is extinguished like a falling star: —

  Such will at times this life appear to me,

  Until I learn to read more perfectly.

  HOM. IL. v. 403.

  If thou art tempted by a thought of ill,

  Crave not too soon for victory, nor deem

  Thou art a coward if thy safety seem

  To spring too little from a righteous will:

  For there is nightmare on thee, nor until

  Thy soul hath caught the morning’s early gleam

  Seek thou to analyze the monstrous dream

  By painful introversion; rather fill

  Thine eye with forms thou knowest to be truth:

  But see thou cherish higher hope than this;

  A hope hereafter that thou shalt be fit

  Calm-eyed to face distortion, and to sit

  Transparent among other forms of youth

  Who own no impulse save to God and bliss.

  And must I ever wake, gray dawn, to know

  Thee standing sadly by me like a ghost?

  I am perplexed with thee, that thou shouldst cost

  This Earth another turning: all aglow

  Thou shouldst have reached me, with a purple show

  Along far-mountain tops: and I would post

  Over the breadth of seas though I were lost

  In the hot phantom-chase for life, if so

  Thou camest ever with this numbing sense

  Of chilly distance and unlovely light;

  Waking this gnawing soul anew to fight

  With its perpetual load: I drive thee hence —

  I have another mountain-range from whence

  Bursteh a sun unutterably bright.

  GALILEO.

  ‘And yet it moves!’ Ah, Truth, where wert thou then,

  When all for thee they racked each piteous limb?

  Wert though in Heaven, and busy with thy hymn,

  When those poor hands convulsed that held thy pen?

  Art thou a phantom that deceivest men

  To their undoing? or dost thou watch him

  Pale, cold, and silent in his dungeon dim?

  And wilt thou ever speak to him again?

  ‘It moves, it moves! Alas, my flesh was weak;

  That was a hideous dream! I’ll cry aloud

  How the green bulk wheels sunward day by day!

  Ah me! ah me! perchance my heart was proud

  That I alone should know that word to speak;

  And now, sweet Truth, shine upon these, I pray.’

  If thou wouldst live the Truth in very deed,

  Thou hast thy joy, but thou hast more of pain.

  Others will live in peace, and thou be fain

  To bargain with despair, and in thy need

  To make thy meal upon the scantiest weed.

  These palaces, for thee they stand in vain;

  Thine is a ruinous hut; and oft the rain

  Shall drench thee in the midnight; yea the speed

  Of earth outstrip thee pilgrim, while thy feet

  Move slowly up the heights. Yet will there come

  Through the time-rents about thy moving cell,

  An arrow for despair, and oft the hum

  Of far-off populous realms where spirits dwell.

  TO * * * *

  Speak, Prophet of the Lord! We may not start

  To find thee with us in thine ancient dress,

  Haggard and pale from some bleak wilderness,

  Empty of all save God and thy loud heart:

  Nor with like rugged message quick to dart

  Into the hideous fiction mean and base:

  But yet, O prophet man, we need not less,

  But more of earnest; though it is thy part

  To deal in other words, if thou wouldst smite

  The living Mammon, seated, not as then

  In bestial quiescence grimly dight,

  But thrice as much an idol-god as when

  He stared at his own feet from morn to night. 8

  THE WATCHER.

  From out a windy cleft there comes a gaze

  Of eyes unearthly which go to and fro

  Upon the people’s tumult, for below

  The nations smite each other: no amaze

  Troubles their liquid rolling, or affrays

  Their deep-set contemplation: steadily glow

  Those ever holier eye-balls, for they grow

  Liker unto the eyes of one that prays.

  And if those clasped hands tremble, comes a power

  As of the might of worlds, and they are holden

  Blessing above us in the sunrise golden;

  And they will be uplifted till that hour

  Of terrible rolling which shall rise and shake

  This conscious nightmare from us and we wake.

  THE BELOVED DISCIPLE.

  I