第30章

There was a building in Rothieden not old, yet so deserted that its very history seemed to have come to a standstill, and the dust that filled it to have fallen from the plumes of passing centuries.It was the property of Mrs.Falconer, left her by her husband.Trade had gradually ebbed away from the town till the thread-factory stood unoccupied, with all its machinery rusting and mouldering, just as the work-people had risen and left it one hot, midsummer day, when they were told that their services were no longer required.Some of the thread even remained upon the spools, and in the hollows of some of the sockets the oil had as yet dried only into a paste; although to Robert the desertion of the place appeared immemorial.It stood at a furlong's distance from the house, on the outskirt of the town.

There was a large, neglected garden behind it, with some good fruit-trees, and plenty of the bushes which boys love for the sake of their berries.After grannie's jam-pots were properly filled, the remnant of these, a gleaning far greater than the gathering, was at the disposal of Robert, and, philosopher although in some measure he was already, he appreciated the privilege.Haunting this garden in the previous summer, he had for the first time made acquaintance with the interior of the deserted factory.The door to the road was always kept locked, and the key of it lay in one of grannie's drawers; but he had then discovered a back entrance less securely fastened, and with a strange mingling of fear and curiosity had from time to time extended his rambles over what seemed to him the huge desolation of the place.Half of it was well built of stone and lime, but of the other half the upper part was built of wood, which now showed signs of considerable decay.One room opened into another through the length of the place, revealing a vista of machines, standing with an air of the last folding of the wings of silence over them, and the sense of a deeper and deeper sinking into the soundless abyss.But their activity was not so far vanished but that by degrees Robert came to fancy that he had some time or other seen a woman seated at each of those silent powers, whose single hand set the whole frame in motion, with its numberless spindles and spools rapidly revolving--a vague mystery of endless threads in orderly complication, out of which came some desired, to him unknown, result, so that the whole place was full of a bewildering tumult of work, every little reel contributing its share, as the water-drops clashing together make the roar of a tempest.Now all was still as the church on a week-day, still as the school on a Saturday afternoon.Nay, the silence seemed to have settled down like the dust, and grown old and thick, so dead and old that the ghost of the ancient noise had arisen to haunt the place.

Thither would Robert carry his violin, and there would he woo her.

'I'm thinkin' I maun tak her wi' me the nicht, Sanders,' he said, holding the fiddle lovingly to his bosom, after he had finished his next lesson.

The shoemaker looked blank.

'Ye're no gaein' to desert me, are ye?'

'Na, weel I wat!' returned Robert.'But I want to try her at hame.

I maun get used till her a bittie, ye ken, afore I can du onything wi' her.'

'I wiss ye had na brought her here ava.What I am to du wantin'

her!'

'What for dinna ye get yer ain back?'

'I haena the siller, man.And, forbye, I doobt I wadna be that sair content wi' her noo gin I had her.I used to think her gran'.But I'm clean oot o' conceit o' her.That bonnie leddy's ta'en 't clean oot o' me.'

'But ye canna hae her aye, ye ken, Sanders.She's no mine.She's my grannie's, ye ken.'

'What's the use o' her to her? She pits nae vailue upon her.Eh, man, gin she wad gie her to me, I wad haud her i' the best o' shune a' the lave o' her days.'

'That wadna be muckle, Sanders, for she hasna had a new pair sin'

ever I mind.'

'But I wad haud Betty in shune as weel.'

'Betty pays for her ain shune, I reckon.'

'Weel, I wad haud you in shune, and yer bairns, and yer bairns'

bairns,' cried the soutar, with enthusiasm.

'Hoot, toot, man! Lang or that ye'll be fiddlin' i' the new Jeroozlem.'

'Eh, man!' said Alexander, looking up--he had just cracked the roset-ends off his hands, for he had the upper leather of a boot in the grasp of the clams, and his right hand hung arrested on its blind way to the awl--'duv ye think there'll be fiddles there? Ithocht they war a' hairps, a thing 'at I never saw, but it canna be up till a fiddle.'

'I dinna ken,' answered Robert; 'but ye suld mak a pint o' seein'

for yersel'.'

'Gin I thoucht there wad be fiddles there, faith I wad hae a try.

It wadna be muckle o' a Jeroozlem to me wantin' my fiddle.But gin there be fiddles, I daursay they'll be gran' anes.I daursay they wad gi' me a new ane--I mean ane as auld as Noah's 'at he played i'

the ark whan the de'il cam' in by to hearken.I wad fain hae a try.

Ye ken a' aboot it wi' that grannie o' yours: hoo's a body to begin?'

'By giein' up the drink, man.'

'Ay--ay--ay--I reckon ye're richt.Weel, I'll think aboot it whan ance I'm throu wi' this job.That'll be neist ook, or thereabouts, or aiblins twa days efter.I'll hae some leiser than.'

Before he had finished speaking he had caught up his awl and begun to work vigorously, boring his holes as if the nerves of feeling were continued to the point of the tool, inserting the bristles that served him for needles with a delicacy worthy of soft-skinned fingers, drawing through the rosined threads with a whisk, and untwining them with a crack from the leather that guarded his hands.

'Gude nicht to ye,' said Robert, with the fiddle-case under his arm.

The shoemaker looked up, with his hands bound in his threads.

'Ye're no gaein' to tak her frae me the nicht?'

'Ay am I, but I'll fess her back again.I'm no gaein' to Jericho wi' her.'

'Gang to Hecklebirnie wi' her, and that's three mile ayont hell.'

'Na; we maun win farther nor that.There canna, be muckle fiddlin'

there.'