Robert Falconer

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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.