She had begun to teach him to pray so early that the custom reached beyond the confines of his memory. At first he had had to repeat the words after her; but soon she made him construct his own utterances, now and then giving him a suggestion in the form of a petition when he seemed likely to break down, or putting a phrase into what she considered more suitable language. But all such assistance she had given up long ago.
On the present occasion, after she had ended her petitions with those for Jews and pagans, and especially for the 'Pop' o' Rom',' in whom with a rare liberality she took the kindest interest, always praying God to give him a good wife, though she knew perfectly well the marriage-creed of the priesthood, for her faith in the hearer of prayer scorned every theory but that in which she had herself been born and bred, she turned to Robert with the usual 'Noo, Robert!' and Robert began. But after he had gone on for some time with the ordinary phrases, he turned all at once into a new track, and instead of praying in general terms for 'those that would not walk in the right way,' said,
'O Lord! save my father,' and there paused.
'If it be thy will,' suggested his grandmother.
But Robert continued silent. His grandmother repeated the subjunctive clause.
'I'm tryin', grandmother,' said Robert, 'but I canna say 't. I daurna say an if aboot it. It wad be like giein' in till 's damnation. We maun hae him saved, grannie!'
'Laddie! laddie! haud yer tongue!' said Mrs. Falconer, in a tone of distressed awe. 'O Lord, forgie 'im. He's young and disna ken better yet. He canna unnerstan' thy ways, nor, for that maitter, can I preten' to unnerstan' them mysel'. But thoo art a' licht, and in thee is no darkness at all. And thy licht comes into oor blin' een, and mak's them blinner yet. But, O Lord, gin it wad please thee to hear oor prayer...eh! hoo we wad praise thee! And my Andrew wad praise thee mair nor ninety and nine o' them 'at need nae repentance.'
A long pause followed. And then the only words that would come were: 'For Christ's sake. Amen.'
When she said that God was light, instead of concluding therefrom that he could not do the deeds of darkness, she was driven, from a faith in the teaching of Jonathan Edwards as implicit as that of 'any lay papist of Loretto,' to doubt whether the deeds of darkness were not after all deeds of light, or at least to conclude that their character depended not on their own nature, but on who did them.
They rose from their knees, and Mrs. Falconer sat down by her fire, with her feet on her little wooden stool, and began, as was her wont in that household twilight, ere the lamp was lighted, to review her past life, and follow her lost son through all conditions and circumstances to her imaginable. And when the world to come arose before her, clad in all the glories which her fancy, chilled by education and years, could supply, it was but to vanish in the gloom of the remembrance of him with whom she dared not hope to share its blessedness. This at least was how Falconer afterwards interpreted the sudden changes from gladness to gloom which he saw at such times on her countenance.