' And
Robert, being as yet more capable of melody than harmony, grudged to
lose a lesson on Sandy's 'auld wife o' a fiddle' for any amount of
Miss St. John's playing.
CHAPTER XV.
ERIC ERICSON.
One gusty evening--it was of the last day in March--Robert well
remembered both the date and the day--a bleak wind was driving up
the long street of the town, and Robert was standing looking out of
one of the windows in the gable-room. The evening was closing into
night. He hardly knew how he came to he there, but when he thought
about it he found it was play-Wednesday, and that he had been all
the half-holiday trying one thing after another to interest himself
withhal, but in vain. He knew nothing about east winds; but not the
less did this dreary wind of the dreary March world prove itself
upon his soul. For such a wind has a shadow wind along with it,
that blows in the minds of men. There was nothing genial, no growth
in it. It killed, and killed most dogmatically. But it is an ill
wind that blows nobody good. Even an east wind must bear some
blessing on its ugly wings. And as Robert looked down from the
gable, the wind was blowing up the street before it half-a-dozen
footfaring students from Aberdeen, on their way home at the close of
the session, probably to the farm-labours of the spring.
This was a glad sight, as that of the returning storks in Denmark.
Robert knew where they would put up, sought his cap, and went out.
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