Robert Falconer

Falconer lived on and laboured on in London. Wherever he found a man fitted for the work, he placed him in such office as De Fleuri already occupied. At the same time he went mo...

It was after this that my own acquaintance with Falconer commenced. I had just come out of one of the theatres in the neighbourhood of the Strand, unable to endure any longer th...

I had left my lodging and gone to occupy Falconer's till his return. There, on a side-table among other papers, I found the following verses. The manuscript was much scored and...

The life before him was not yet born; and what should issue from that dull ghastly unrevealing fog on the horizon, he did not care. Thither the tide setting eastward would carry...

'Wha was that at the door, Betty?' asked Mrs. Falconer; for Robert had not shut the door so carefully as he ought, seeing that the deafness of his grandmother was of much the sa...

Robert had scarcely turned out of the square on his way to find Shargar, when a horseman entered it. His horse and he were both apparently black on one side and gray on the othe...

For some time after the loss of his friend, Robert went loitering and mooning about, quite neglecting the lessons to which he had not, it must be confessed, paid much attention...

Meantime Ericson grew better. A space of hard, clear weather, in which everything sparkled with frost and sunshine, did him good. But not yet could he use his brain. He turned w...

The next morning Falconer, who knew the country, took us out for a drive. We passed through lanes and gates out upon all open moor, where he stopped the carriage, and led us a f...

The winter passed slowly away. Robert and Shargar went to school together, and learned their lessons together at Mrs. Falconer's table. Shargar soon learned to behave with toler...

Before many months had passed, without the slightest approach to any formal recognition, I found myself one of the church of labour of which Falconer was clearly the bishop. As...

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-...

The period of the hairst-play, that is, of the harvest holiday time, drew near, and over the north of Scotland thousands of half-grown hearts were beating with glad anticipation...

The morning at length arrived when Robert and Shargar must return to Rothieden. A keen autumnal wind was blowing far-off feathery clouds across a sky of pale blue; the cold fres...

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 w...

One lovely evening in the first of the summer Miss St. John had dismissed him earlier than usual, and he had wandered out for a walk. After a round of a couple of miles, he retu...

One of the first warm mornings in the beginning of summer, the boy woke early, and lay awake, as was his custom, thinking. The sun, in all the indescribable purity of its mornin...

The youths had not left the city a mile behind, when a thick snowstorm came on. It did not last long, however, and they fought their way through it into a glimpse of sun. To Rob...

Ericson lay for several weeks, during which time Robert and Shargar were his only nurses. They contrived, by abridging both rest and labour, to give him constant attendance. Sha...

It was late when he left his friend. As he walked through the Gallowgate, an ancient narrow street, full of low courts, some one touched him upon the arm. He looked round. It wa...

Four years passed before Falconer returned to his native country, during which period Dr. Anderson had visited him twice, and shown himself well satisfied with his condition and...

One day, as Falconer sat at a late breakfast, Shargar burst into his room. Falconer had not even known that he was coming home, for he had outstripped the letter he had sent. He...

The remainder of that winter was dreary indeed. Every time Robert went up the stair to his garret, he passed the door of a tomb. With that gray mortar Mary St. John was walled u...

Dr. Anderson's body was, according to the fine custom of many of the people of Aberdeen, borne to the grave by twelve stalwart men in black, with broad round bonnets on their he...

But now that Falconer had a ground, even thus shadowy, for hoping--I cannot say believing--that his father might be in London, he could not return to Aberdeen. Moray, who had no...

The wound on Robert's foot festered, and had not yet healed when the sickle was first put to the barley. He hobbled out, however, to the reapers, for he could not bear to be lef...

Meantime Robert was seated in the parlour at the little dark mahogany table, in which the lamp, shaded towards his grandmother's side, shone brilliantly reflected. Her face bein...

When he arrived he made it his first business to find 'Widow Walker.' She was evidently one of the worst of her class; and could it have been accomplished without scandal, and w...

The next Sunday Robert went with Ericson to the episcopal chapel, and for the first time in his life heard the epic music of the organ. It was a new starting-point in his life....

Having at length persuaded the woman to go with him, Falconer made her take his arm, and led her off the bridge. In Parliament Street he was looking about for a cab as they walk...

His sole relaxation almost lay in the visit he paid every evening to the soutar and his wife. Their home was a wretched place; but notwithstanding the poverty in which they were...

Robert's heart was dreary when he got on the box-seat of the mail-coach at Rothieden--it was yet drearier when he got down at The Royal Hotel in the street of Ben Accord--and it...

'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 God, as they call it, there should be, now and t...

It was a very bare little room in which the boy sat, but it was his favourite retreat. Behind the door, in a recess, stood an empty bedstead, without even a mattress upon it. Th...

It was a warm still night in July--moonless but not dark. There is no night there in the summer--only a long ethereal twilight. He walked through the sleeping town so full of me...

One gusty evening--it was of the last day in March--Robert well remembered both the date and the day--a bleak wind was driving up the long street of the town, and Robert was sta...

At length the time arrived when Robert would make a further attempt, although with a fear and trembling to quiet which he had to seek the higher aid. His father had recovered hi...

The presence at the street door of which Ericson's over-acute sense had been aware on a past evening, was that of Mr. Lindsay, walking home with bowed back and bowed head from t...

The friendship of Robert had gained Shargar the favourable notice of others of the school-public. These were chiefly of those who came from the country, ready to follow an examp...

The following night, he left his books on the table, and the house itself behind him, and sped like a grayhound to Dooble Sanny's shop, lifted the latch, and entered.

Miss St. John had long since returned from her visit, but having heard how much Robert was taken up with his dying friend, she judged it better to leave her intended proposal of...

Early on the following morning, while Mrs. Falconer, Robert, and Shargar were at breakfast, Mr. Lammie came. He had delayed communicating the intelligence he had received till h...

Robert went out into the thin drift, and again crossing the wide desolate-looking square, turned down an entry leading to a kind of court, which had once been inhabited by a wel...

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 pape...

But various reasons combined to induce Falconer to postpone yet for a period their journey to the North. Not merely did his father require an unremitting watchfulness, which it...

Before the day of return arrived, Robert had taken care to remove the violin from his bedroom, and carry it once more to its old retreat in Shargar's garret. The very first even...

Although Betty seemed to hold little communication with the outer world, she yet contrived somehow or other to bring home what gossip was going to the ears of her mistress, who...

When Robert opened the door of his grandmother's parlour, he found the old lady seated at breakfast. She rose, pushed back her chair, and met him in the middle of the room; put...

As Andrew Falconer grew better, the longing of his mind after former excitement and former oblivion, roused and kept alive the longing of his body, until at length his thoughts...

Robert kept himself thoroughly awake the whole night, and it was well that he had not to attend classes in the morning. As the gray of the world's reviving consciousness melted...

Robert had his first lesson the next Saturday afternoon. Eager and undismayed by the presence of Mrs. Forsyth, good-natured and contemptuous--for had he not a protecting angel b...

The men laid their mother's body with those of the generations that had gone before her, beneath the long grass in their country churchyard near Rothieden--a dreary place, one a...

Mary St. John was the orphan daughter of an English clergyman, who had left her money enough to make her at least independent. Mrs. Forsyth, hearing that her niece was left alon...

That Shargar was a parish scholar--which means that the parish paid his fees, although, indeed, they were hardly worth paying--made very little difference to his position amongs...

At the close of a fortnight, Falconer thought it time to return to his duties in Aberdeen. The day before the steamer sailed, they found themselves, about six o'clock, in Gracec...

They came to see me the very evening of their arrival. As to Andrew's progress there could be no longer any doubt. All that was necessary for conviction on the point was to have...

Away went Robert to find the house. That was easy. What a grand house of smooth granite and wide approach it was! The great door was opened by a man-servant, who looked at the c...

If Mary St. John had been an ordinary woman, and if, notwithstanding, Robert had been in love with her, he would have done very little in preparation for the coming session. But...

Miss Napier was the eldest of three maiden sisters who kept the principal hostelry of Rothieden, called The Boar's Head; from which, as Robert reached the square in the dusk, th...

I could linger with gladness even over this part of my hero's history. If the school work was dry it was thorough. If that academy had no sweetly shadowing trees; if it did stan...

Not many weeks passed before Shargar knew Aberdeen better than most Aberdonians. From the Pier-head to the Rubislaw Road, he knew, if not every court, yet every thoroughfare and...

Once more Falconer retired, but not to take his violin. He could play no more. Hope and love were swelling within him. He could not rest. Was it a sign from heaven that the hour...

One thing that troubled Robert on this his return home, was the discovery that the surroundings of his childhood had deserted him. There they were, as of yore, but they seemed t...

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 looke...

At length the vessel lay alongside the quay, and as Mysie stepped from its side the skipper found an opportunity of giving her Robert's letter. It was the poorest of chances, bu...

After this, day followed day in calm, dull progress. Robert did not care for the games through which his school-fellows forgot the little they had to forget, and had therefore f...

Ericson was recovering slowly. He could sit up in bed the greater part of the day, and talk about getting out of it. He was able to give Robert an occasional help with his Greek...

Next day, his foot was so much better that he sent Shargar to Rothieden to buy the string, taking with him Robert's school-bag, in which to carry off his Sunday shoes; for as to...

One afternoon, as they were sitting at their tea, a footstep in the garden approached the house, and then a figure passed the window. Mr. Lammie started to his feet.

The next week I went back to my work, leaving the father and son alone together. Before I left, I could see plainly enough that the bonds were being drawn closer between them. A...

Robert Falconer, school-boy, aged fourteen, thought he had never seen his father; that is, thought he had no recollection of having ever seen him. But the moment when my story b...