ROBERT STEALS HIS OWN.
The period of the hairst-play, that is, of the harvest holiday time, drew near, and over the north of Scotland thousands of half-grown hearts were beating with glad anticipation.Of the usual devices of boys to cheat themselves into the half-belief of expediting a blessed approach by marking its rate, Robert knew nothing: even the notching of sticks was unknown at Rothieden; but he had a mode notwithstanding.Although indifferent to the games of his school-fellows, there was one amusement, a solitary one nearly, and therein not so good as most amusements, into which he entered with the whole energy of his nature: it was kite-flying.The moment that the hairst-play approached near enough to strike its image through the eyes of his mind, Robert proceeded to make his kite, or draigon, as he called it.Of how many pleasures does pocket-money deprive the unfortunate possessor! What is the going into a shop and buying what you want, compared with the gentle delight of hours and days filled with gaining effort after the attainment of your end? Never boy that bought his kite, even if the adornment thereafter lay in his own hands, and the pictures were gorgeous with colour and gilding, could have half the enjoyment of Robert from the moment he went to the cooper's to ask for an old gird or hoop, to the moment when he said 'Noo, Shargar!' and the kite rose slowly from the depth of the a?rial flood.The hoop was carefully examined, the best portion cut away from it, that pared to a light strength, its ends confined to the proper curve by a string, and then away went Robert to the wright's shop.There a slip of wood, of proper length and thickness, was readily granted to his request, free as the daisies of the field.Oh! those horrid town conditions, where nothing is given for the asking, but all sold for money! In Robert's kite the only thing that cost money was the string to fly it with, and that the grandmother willingly provided, for not even her ingenuity could discover any evil, direct or implicated, in kite-flying.Indeed, Ibelieve the old lady felt not a little sympathy with the exultation of the boy when he saw his kite far aloft, diminished to a speck in the vast blue; a sympathy, it may be, rooted in the religious aspirations which she did so much at once to rouse and to suppress in the bosom of her grandchild.But I have not yet reached the kite-flying, for I have said nothing of the kite's tail, for the sake of which principally I began to describe the process of its growth.
As soon as the body of the dragon was completed, Robert attached to its spine the string which was to take the place of its caudal elongation, and at a proper distance from the body joined to the string the first of the cross-pieces of folded paper which in this animal represent the continued vertebral processes.Every morning, the moment he issued from his chamber, he proceeded to the garret where the monster lay, to add yet another joint to his tail, until at length the day should arrive when, the lessons over for a blessed eternity of five or six weeks, he would tip the whole with a piece of wood, to which grass, quantum suff., might be added from the happy fields.
Upon this occasion the dragon was a monster one.With a little help from Shargar, he had laid the skeleton of a six-foot specimen, and had carried the body to a satisfactory completion.
The tail was still growing, having as yet only sixteen joints, when Mr.Lammie called with an invitation for the boys to spend their holidays with him.It was fortunate for Robert that he was in the room when Mr.Lammie presented his petition, otherwise he would never have heard of it till the day of departure arrived, and would thus have lost all the delights of anticipation.In frantic effort to control his ecstasy, he sped to the garret, and with trembling hands tied the second joint of the day to the tail of the dragon--the first time he had ever broken the law of its accretion.
Once broken, that law was henceforth an object of scorn, and the tail grew with frightful rapidity.It was indeed a great dragon.
And none of the paltry fields about Rothieden should be honoured with its first flight, but from Bodyfauld should the majestic child of earth ascend into the regions of upper air.
My reader may here be tempted to remind me that Robert had been only too glad to return to Rothieden from his former visit.But I must in my turn remind him that the circumstances were changed.In the first place, the fiddle was substituted for grannie; and in the second, the dragon for the school.
The making of this dragon was a happy thing for Shargar, and a yet happier thing for Robert, in that it introduced again for a time some community of interest between them.Shargar was happier than he had been for many a day because Robert used him; and Robert was yet happier than Shargar in that his conscience, which had reproached him for his neglect of him, was now silent.But not even his dragon had turned aside his attentions from his violin; and many were the consultations between the boys as to how best she might be transported to Bodyfauld, where endless opportunities of holding communion with her would not be wanting.The difficulty was only how to get her clear of Rothieden.
The play commenced on a Saturday; but not till the Monday were they to be set at liberty.Wearily the hours of mental labour and bodily torpidity which the Scotch called the Sabbath passed away, and at length the millennial morning dawned.Robert and Shargar were up before the sun.But strenuous were the efforts they made to suppress all indications of excitement, lest grannie, fearing the immoral influence of gladness, should give orders to delay their departure for an awfully indefinite period, which might be an hour, a day, or even a week.Horrible conception! Their behaviour was so decorous that not even a hinted threat escaped the lips of Mrs.
Falconer.
