Robert Falconer | Page 3

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*END THE SMALL PRINT! FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN
ETEXTS*Ver.04.29.93*END*

This electronic text was created by John Bechard, London, England
([email protected])

ROBERT FALCONER
by GEORGE MACDONALD, LL.D.

Note from electronic text creator: I have compiled a glossary with
definitions of most of the Scottish words found in this work and placed
it at the end of this electronic text. This glossary does not belong to the
original work, but is designed to help with the conversations and
references in Broad Scots found in this work. A further explanation of
this list can be found towards the end of this document, preceding the
glossary.
Any notes that I have made in the text (e.g. relating to Greek words in
the text) have been enclosed in {} brackets.

TO
THE MEMORY
OF THE MAN WHO
STANDS HIGHEST IN THE ORATORY

OF MY MEMORY,
ALEXANDER JOHN SCOTT,
I, DARING, PRESUME TO DEDICATE THIS BOOK.


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.