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and not lose hold of each other all the time, even when the sense of the clasping hands was gone, and the soul had withdrawn itself from the touch?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.