Robert Falconer E-Book

George MacDonald

• Herausgeber: George Macdonald
• Kategorie: Sachliteratur, Reportagen, Biografien
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

Beautiful story about the life of Robert Falconer. The story opens as Robert is a young boy living with his grandmother and tells of Robert's struggles to find God. Some of the Christian values that are taught during the writing of this book were very poignant.

Leseprobe

ROBERT FALCONER

by

George Macdonald

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PART I.   —HIS BOYHOOD. CHAPTER I.   A RECOLLECTION. CHAPTER II.   A VISITOR. CHAPTER III.   THE BOAR'S HEAD. CHAPTER IV.   SHARGAR. CHAPTER V.   THE SYMPOSIUM. CHAPTER VI.   MRS. FALCONER. CHAPTER VII.   ROBERT TO THE RESCUE! CHAPTER VIII.   THE ANGEL UNAWARES. CHAPTER IX.   A DISCOVERY. CHAPTER X.   ANOTHER DISCOVERY IN THE GARRET. CHAPTER XI.   PRIVATE INTERVIEWS. CHAPTER XII.   ROBERT'S PLAN OF SALVATION. CHAPTER XIII.   ROBERT'S MOTHER. CHAPTER XIV.   MARY ST. JOHN. CHAPTER XV.   ERIC ERICSON. CHAPTER XVI.   MR. LAMMIE'S FARM. CHAPTER XVII.   ADVENTURES. CHAPTER XVIII.   NATURE PUTS IN A CLAIM. CHAPTER XIX.   ROBERT STEALS HIS OWN. CHAPTER XX.   JESSIE HEWSON. CHAPTER XXI.   THE DRAGON. CHAPTER XXII.   DR. ANDERSON. CHAPTER XXIII.   AN AUTO DA FÉ. CHAPTER XXIV.   BOOT FOR BALE. CHAPTER XXV.   THE GATES OF PARADISE.PART II.   —HIS YOUTH. CHAPTER I.   ROBERT KNOCKS CHAPTER II.   THE STROKE. CHAPTER III.   'THE END CROWNS ALL'. CHAPTER IV.   THE ABERDEEN GARRET. CHAPTER V.   THE COMPETITION. CHAPTER VI.   DR. ANDERSON AGAIN. CHAPTER VII.   ERIC ERICSON. CHAPTER VIII.   A HUMAN PROVIDENCE. CHAPTER IX.   A HUMAN SOUL. CHAPTER X.   A FATHER AND A DAUGHTER. CHAPTER XI.   ROBERT'S VOW. CHAPTER XII.   THE GRANITE CHURCH.CHAPTER XIII.   SHARGAR'S ARM. CHAPTER XIV.   MYSIE'S FACE. CHAPTER XV.   THE LAST OF THE COALS. CHAPTER XVI.   A STRANGE NIGHT. CHAPTER XVII.   HOME AGAIN. CHAPTER XVIII.   A GRAVE OPENED. CHAPTER XIX.   ROBERT MEDIATES. CHAPTER XX.   ERICSON LOSES TO WIN. CHAPTER XXI.   SHARGAR ASPIRES. CHAPTER XXII.   ROBERT IN ACTION. CHAPTER XXIII.      ROBERT FINDS A NEW INSTRUMENT. CHAPTER XXIV.   DEATH. CHAPTER XXV.   IN MEMORIAM.PART III.   —HIS MANHOOD. CHAPTER I.   IN THE DESERT. CHAPTER II.   HOME AGAIN.CHAPTER III.   A MERE GLIMPSE. CHAPTER IV.   THE DOCTOR'S DEATH. CHAPTER V.   A TALK WITH GRANNIE. CHAPTER VI.   SHARGAR'S MOTHER. CHAPTER VII.   THE SILK-WEAVER. CHAPTER VIII.   MY OWN ACQUAINTANCE. CHAPTER IX.   THE BROTHERS. CHAPTER X.   A NEOPHYTE. CHAPTER XI.   THE SUICIDE.CHAPTER XII.   ANDREW AT LAST.CHAPTER XIII.   ANDREW REBELS. CHAPTER XIV.   THE BROWN LETTER. CHAPTER XV.   FATHER AND SON. CHAPTER XVI.   CHANGE OF SCENE. CHAPTER XVII.   IN THE COUNTRY. CHAPTER XVIII.   THREE GENERATIONS. CHAPTER XIX.   THE WHOLE STORY. CHAPTER XX.   THE VANISHING. CHAPTER XXI.   IN EXPECTATIONE.PART I.—HIS BOYHOOD.CHAPTER I. A RECOLLECTION.

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 begins, he had begun to doubt whether his belief in the matter was correct. And, as he went on thinking, he became more and more assured that he had seen his father somewhere about six years before, as near as a thoughtful boy of his age could judge of the lapse of a period that would form half of that portion of his existence which was bound into one by the reticulations of memory.

For there dawned upon his mind the vision of one Sunday afternoon. Betty had gone to church, and he was alone with his grandmother, reading The Pilgrim's Progress to her, when, just as Christian knocked at the wicket-gate, a tap came to the street door, and he went to open it. There he saw a tall, somewhat haggard-looking man, in a shabby black coat (the vision gradually dawned upon him till it reached the minuteness of all these particulars), his hat pulled down on to his projecting eyebrows, and his shoes very dusty, as with a long journey on foot—it was a hot Sunday, he remembered that—who looked at him very strangely, and without a word pushed him aside, and went straight into his grandmother's parlour, shutting the door behind him. He followed, not doubting that the man must have a right to go there, but questioning very much his right to shut him out. When he reached the door, however, he found it bolted; and outside he had to stay all alone, in the desolate remainder of the house, till Betty came home from church.

He could even recall, as he thought about it, how drearily the afternoon had passed. First he had opened the street door, and stood in it. There was nothing alive to be seen, except a sparrow picking up crumbs, and he would not stop till he was tired of him. The Royal Oak, down the street to the right, had not even a horseless gig or cart standing before it; and King Charles, grinning awfully in its branches on the signboard, was invisible from the distance at which he stood. In at the other end of the empty street, looked the distant uplands, whose waving corn and grass were likewise invisible, and beyond them rose one blue truncated peak in the distance, all of them wearily at rest this weary Sabbath day. However, there was one thing than which this was better, and that was being at church, which, to this boy at least, was the very fifth essence of dreariness.

He closed the door and went into the kitchen. That was nearly as bad. The kettle was on the fire, to be sure, in anticipation of tea; but the coals under it were black on the top, and it made only faint efforts, after immeasurable intervals of silence, to break into a song, giving a hum like that of a bee a mile off, and then relapsing into hopeless inactivity. Having just had his dinner, he was not hungry enough to find any resource in the drawer where the oatcakes lay, and, unfortunately, the old wooden clock in the corner was going, else there would have been some amusement in trying to torment it into demonstrations of life, as he had often done in less desperate circumstances than the present. At last he went up-stairs to the very room in which he now was, and sat down upon the floor, just as he was sitting now. He had not even brought his Pilgrim's Progress with him from his grandmother's room. But, searching about in all holes and corners, he at length found Klopstock's Messiah translated into English, and took refuge there till Betty came home. Nor did he go down till she called him to tea, when, expecting to join his grandmother and the stranger, he found, on the contrary, that he was to have his tea with Betty in the kitchen, after which he again took refuge with Klopstock in the garret, and remained there till it grew dark, when Betty came in search of him, and put him to bed in the gable-room, and not in his usual chamber. In the morning, every trace of the visitor had vanished, even to the thorn stick which he had set down behind the door as he entered.

All this Robert Falconer saw slowly revive on the palimpsest of his memory, as he washed it with the vivifying waters of recollection.CHAPTER II. A VISITOR.

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. This was the only piece of furniture in the room, unless some shelves crowded with papers tied up in bundles, and a cupboard in the wall, likewise filled with papers, could be called furniture. There was no carpet on the floor, no windows in the walls. The only light came from the door, and from a small skylight in the sloping roof, which showed that it was a garret-room. Nor did much light come from the open door, for there was no window on the walled stair to which it opened; only opposite the door a few steps led up into another garret, larger, but with a lower roof, unceiled, and perforated with two or three holes, the panes of glass filling which were no larger than the small blue slates which covered the roof: from these panes a little dim brown light tumbled into the room where the boy sat on the floor, with his head almost between his knees, thinking.

But there was less light than usual in the room now, though it was only half-past two o'clock, and the sun would not set for more than half-an-hour yet; for if Robert had lifted his head and looked up, it would have been at, not through, the skylight. No sky was to be seen. A thick covering of snow lay over the glass. A partial thaw, followed by frost, had fixed it there—a mass of imperfect cells and confused crystals. It was a cold place to sit in, but the boy had some faculty for enduring cold when it was the price to be paid for solitude. And besides, when he fell into one of his thinking moods, he forgot, for a season, cold and everything else but what he was thinking about—a faculty for which he was to be envied.