ROBERT FINDS A NEW INSTRUMENT.
At length the vessel lay alongside the quay, and as Mysie stepped from its side the skipper found an opportunity of giving her Robert's letter.It was the poorest of chances, but Robert could think of no other.She started on receiving it, but regarding the skipper's significant gestures put it quietly away.She looked anything but happy, for her illness had deprived her of courage, and probably roused her conscience.Robert followed the pair, saw them enter The Great Labourer--what could the name mean? could it mean The Good Shepherd?--and turned away helpless, objectless indeed, for he had done all that he could, and that all was of no potency.Aworld of innocence and beauty was about to be hurled from its orbit of light into the blackness of outer chaos; he knew it, and was unable to speak word or do deed that should frustrate the power of a devil who so loved himself that he counted it an honour to a girl to have him for her ruin.Her after life had no significance for him, save as a trophy of his victory.He never perceived that such victory was not yielded to him; that he gained it by putting on the garments of light; that if his inward form had appeared in its own ugliness, not one of the women whose admiration he had secured would not have turned from him as from the monster of an old tale.
Robert wandered about till he was so weary that his head ached with weariness.At length he came upon the open space before the cathedral, whence the poplar-spire rose aloft into a blue sky flecked with white clouds.It was near sunset, and he could not see the sun, but the upper half of the spire shone glorious in its radiance.From the top his eye sank to the base.In the base was a little door half open.Might not that be the lowly narrow entrance through the shadow up to the sun-filled air? He drew near with a kind of tremor, for never before had he gazed upon visible grandeur growing out of the human soul, in the majesty of everlastingness--a tree of the Lord's planting.Where had been but an empty space of air and light and darkness, had risen, and had stood for ages, a mighty wonder awful to the eye, solid to the hand.He peeped through the opening of the door: there was the foot of a stair--marvellous as the ladder of Jacob's dream--turning away towards the unknown.He pushed the door and entered.A man appeared and barred his advance.Robert put his hand in his pocket and drew out some silver.The man took one piece--looked at it--turned it over--put it in his pocket, and led the way up the stair.Robert followed and followed and followed.
He came out of stone walls upon an airy platform whence the spire ascended heavenwards.His conductor led upward still, and he followed, winding within a spiral network of stone, through which all the world looked in.Another platform, and yet another spire springing from its basement.Still up they went, and at length stood on a circle of stone surrounding like a coronet the last base of the spire which lifted its apex untrodden.Then Robert turned and looked below.He grasped the stones before him.The loneliness was awful.
There was nothing between him and the roofs of the houses, four hundred feet below, but the spot where he stood.The whole city, with its red roofs, lay under him.He stood uplifted on the genius of the builder, and the town beneath him was a toy.The all but featureless flat spread forty miles on every side, and the roofs of the largest buildings below were as dovecots.But the space between was alive with awe--so vast, so real!
