Robert Falconer Author:George MacDonald Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: 40 CHAPTER III. 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 sa... more »iled, 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 bornin, 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. " Vhat'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 om...« less