Robert Falconer

All is mine; all is my own!
Toss the purple fountain high!
The breast of man is a vat of stone;
I am alive, I, only I!

Thou hast beheld a throated fountain spout
Full in the air, and in the downward spray
A hovering Iris span the marble tank,
Which as the wind came, ever rose and sank
Violet and red; so my continual play
Makes beauty for the Gods with many a prank
Of human excellence, while they,
Weary of all the noon, in shadows sweet
Supine and heavy-eyed rest in the boundless heat:
Let the world’s fountain play!
Beauty is pleasant in the eyes of Jove;
Betwixt the wavering shadows where he lies
He marks the dancing column with his eyes
Celestial, and amid his inmost grove
Upgathers all his limbs, serenely blest,
Lulled by the mellow noise of the great world’s unrest.

One heart beats in all nature, differing
But in the work it works; its doubts and clamours
Are but the waste and brunt of instruments
Wherewith a work is done; or as the hammers
On forge Cyclopean plied beneath the rents
Of lowest Etna, conquering into shape
The hard and scattered ore:
Choose thou narcotics, and the dizzy grape
Outworking passion, lest with horrid crash
Thy life go from thee in a night of pain.
So tutoring thy vision, shall the flash
Of dove white-breasted be to thee no more
Than a white stone heavy upon the plain.

Hark the cock crows loud!
And without, all ghastly and ill,
Like a man uplift in his shroud,
The white white morn is propped on the hill;
And adown from the eaves, pointed and chill,
The icicles ‘gin to glitter;
And the birds with a warble short and shrill,
Pass by the chamber-window still—
With a quick uneasy twitter.
Let me pump warm blood, for the cold is bitter;
And wearily, wearily, one by one,
Men awake with the weary sun.

Life is a phantom shut in thee;
I am the master and keep the key;
So let me toss thee the days of old,
Crimson and orange and green and gold;
So let me fill thee yet again
With a rush of dreams from my spout amain;
For all is mine; all is my own;
Toss the purple fountain high!
The breast of man is a vat of stone;
And I am alive, I, only I.

Robert having read, sat and wept in silence. Ericson saw him, and said tenderly,

‘Robert, my boy, I’m not always so bad as that. Read this one—though I never feel like it now. Perhaps it may come again some day, though. I may once more deceive myself and be happy.’

‘Dinna say that, Mr. Ericson. That’s waur than despair. That’s flat unbelief. Ye no more ken that ye’re deceivin’ yersel’ than ye ken that ye’re no doin’ ‘t.’

Ericson did not reply; and Robert read the following sonnet aloud, feeling his way delicately through its mazes:—

Lie down upon the ground, thou hopeless one!
Press thy face in the grass, and do not speak.
Dost feel the green globe whirl?  Seven times a week
Climbeth she out of darkness to the sun,
Which is her god; seven times she doth not shun
Awful eclipse, laying her patient cheek
Upon a pillow ghost-beset with shriek
Of voices utterless which rave and run
Through all the star-penumbra, craving light
And tidings of the dawn from East and West.
Calmly she sleepeth, and her sleep is blest
With heavenly visions, and the joy of Night
Treading aloft with moons.  Nor hath she fright
Though cloudy tempests beat upon her breast.

Ericson turned his face to the wall, and Robert withdrew to his own chamber.

CHAPTER XIII. SHARGAR’S ARM

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 short cut. And Aberdeen began to know him. He was very soon recognized as trustworthy, and had pretty nearly as much to do as he could manage. Shargar, therefore, was all over the city like a cracker, and could have told at almost any hour where Dr. Anderson was to be found—generally in the lower parts of it, for the good man visited much among the poor; giving them almost exclusively the benefit of his large experience. Shargar delighted in keeping an eye upon the doctor, carefully avoiding to show himself.

One day as he was hurrying through the Green (a non virendo) on a mission from the Rothieden carrier, he came upon the doctor’s chariot standing in one of the narrowest streets, and, as usual, paused to contemplate the equipage and get a peep of the owner. The morning was very sharp. There was no snow, but a cold fog, like vaporized hoar-frost, filled the air. It was weather in which the East Indian could not venture out on foot, else he could have reached the place by a stair from Union Street far sooner than he could drive thither. His horses apparently liked the cold as little as himself. They had been moving about restlessly for some time before the doctor made his appearance. The moment he got in and shut the door, one of them reared, while the other began to haul on his traces, eager for a gallop. Something about the chain gave way, the pole swerved round under the rearing horse, and great confusion and danger would have ensued, had not Shargar rushed from his coign of vantage, sprung at the bit of the rearing horse, and dragged him off the pole, over which he was just casting his near leg. As soon as his feet touched the ground he too pulled, and away went the chariot and down went Shargar. But in a moment more several men had laid hold of the horses’ heads, and stopped them.

‘Oh Lord!’ cried Shargar, as he rose with his arm dangling by his side, ‘what will Donal’ Joss say? I’m like to swarf (faint). Haud awa’ frae that basket, ye wuddyfous (withy-fowls, gallows-birds),’ he cried, darting towards the hamper he had left in the entry of a court, round which a few ragged urchins had gathered; but just as he reached it he staggered and fell. Nor did he know anything more till he found the carriage stopping with himself and the hamper inside it.

As soon as the coachman had got his harness put to rights, the doctor had driven back to see how the lad had fared, for he had felt the carriage go over something. They had found him lying beside his hamper, had secured both, and as a preliminary measure were proceeding to deliver the latter.

‘Whaur am I? whaur the deevil am I?’ cried Shargar, jumping up and falling back again.

‘Don’t you know me, Moray?’ said the doctor, for he felt shy of calling the poor boy by his nickname: he had no right to do so.

‘Na, I dinna ken ye. Lat me awa’.—I beg yer pardon, doctor: I thocht ye was ane o’ thae wuddyfous rinnin’ awa’ wi’ Donal’ Joss’s basket. Eh me! sic a stoun’ i’ my airm! But naebody ca’s me Moray. They a’ ca’ me Shargar. What richt hae I to be ca’d Moray?’ added the poor boy, feeling, I almost believe for the first time, the stain upon his birth. Yet he had as good a right before God to be called Moray as any other son of that worthy sire, the Baron of Rothie included. Possibly the trumpet-blowing angels did call him Moray, or some better name.