A MERE GLIMPSE.
At the close of a fortnight, Falconer thought it time to return to his duties in Aberdeen.The day before the steamer sailed, they found themselves, about six o'clock, in Gracechurch Street.It was a fine summer evening.The street was less crowded than earlier in the afternoon, although there was a continuous stream of waggons, omnibuses, and cabs both ways.As they stood on the curbstone, a little way north of Lombard Street, waiting to cross--'You see, Shargar,' said Robert, 'Nature will have her way.Not all the hurry and confusion and roar can keep the shadows out.Look:
wherever a space is for a moment vacant, there falls a shadow, as grotesque, as strange, as full of unutterable things as any shadow on a field of grass and daisies.'
'I remember feeling the same kind of thing in India,' returned Shargar, 'where nothing looked as if it belonged to the world I was born in, but my own shadow.In such a street as this, however, all the shadows look as if they belonged to another world, and had no business here.'
'I quite feel that,' returned Falconer.'They come like angels from the lovely west and the pure air, to show that London cannot hurt them, for it too is within the Kingdom of God--to teach the lovers of nature, like the old orthodox Jew, St.Peter, that they must not call anything common or unclean.'
Shargar made no reply, and Robert glanced round at him.He was staring with wide eyes into, not at the crowd of vehicles that filled the street.His face was pale, and strangely like the Shargar of old days.
'What's the matter with you?' Robert asked in some bewilderment.
Receiving no answer, he followed Shargar's gaze, and saw a strange sight for London city.
In the middle of the crowd of vehicles, with an omnibus before them, and a brewer's dray behind them, came a line of three donkey-carts, heaped high with bundles and articles of gipsy-gear.The foremost was conducted by a middle-aged woman of tall, commanding aspect, and expression both cunning and fierce.She walked by the donkey's head carrying a short stick, with which she struck him now and then, but which she oftener waved over his head like the truncheon of an excited marshal on the battle-field, accompanying its movements now with loud cries to the animal, now with loud response to the chaff of the omnibus conductor, the dray driver, and the tradesmen in carts about her.She was followed by a very handsome, olive-complexioned, wild-looking young woman, with her black hair done up in a red handkerchief, who conducted her donkey more quietly.Both seemed as much at home in the roar of Gracechurch Street as if they had been crossing a wild common.Aloutish-looking young man brought up the rear with the third donkey.
>From the bundles on the foremost cart peeped a lovely, fair-haired, English-looking child.
Robert took all this in in a moment.The same moment Shargar's spell was broken.
'Lord, it is my mither!' he cried, and darted under a horse's neck into the middle of the ruck.
He needled his way through till he reached the woman.She was swearing at a cabman whose wheel had caught the point of her donkey's shaft, and was hauling him round.Heedless of everything, Shargar threw his arms about her, crying,'Mither! mither!'
'Nane o' yer blastit humbug!' she exclaimed, as, with a vigorous throw and a wriggle, she freed herself from his embrace and pushed him away.
The moment she had him at arm's length, however, her hand closed upon his arm, and her other hand went up to her brow.From underneath it her eyes shot up and down him from head to foot, and he could feel her hand closing and relaxing and closing again, as if she were trying to force her long nails into his flesh.He stood motionless, waiting the result of her scrutiny, utterly unconscious that he caused a congestion in the veins of London, for every vehicle within sight of the pair had stopped.Falconer said a strange silence fell upon the street, as if all the things in it had been turned into shadows.
A rough voice, which sounded as if all London must have heard it, broke the silence.It was the voice of the cabman who had been in altercation with the woman.Bursting into an insulting laugh, he used words with regard to her which it is better to leave unrecorded.The same instant Shargar freed himself from her grasp, and stood by the fore wheel of the cab.
'Get down!' he said, in a voice that was not the less impressive that it was low and hoarse.
The fellow saw what he meant, and whipped his horse.Shargar sprung on the box, and dragged him down all but headlong.
'Now,' he said, 'beg my mother's pardon.'
'Be damned if I do, &c., &c.,' said the cabman.
'Then defend yourself,' said Shargar.'Robert.'
Falconer was watching it all, and was by his side in a moment.