第33章

But yer ain son! Eh ay! And a braw lad and a bonnie! It's a sod thing he bude to gang the wrang gait; and it's no wonner, as I say, that ye lea' the worms to come an' luik efter him.I doobt--I doobt it winna be to you he'll gang at the lang last.There winna be room for him aside ye in Awbrahawm's boasom.And syne to behave sae ill to that winsome wife o' his! I dinna wonner 'at ye maun be up! Eh na! But, sir, sin ye are up, I wish ye wad speyk to John Thamson no to tak aff the day 'at I was awa' last ook, for 'deed I was verra unweel, and bude to keep my bed.'

Robert was beginning to feel uneasy as to how he should get rid of her, when she rose, and saying, 'Ay, ay, I ken it's sax o'clock,'

went out as she had come in.Robert followed, and saw her safe out of the garden, but did not return to the factory.

So his father had behaved ill to his mother too!

'But what for hearken to the havers o' a dottled auld wife?' he said to himself, pondering as he walked home.

Old Janet told a strange story of how she had seen the ghost, and had had a long talk with him, and of what he said, and of how he groaned and played the fiddle between.And finding that the report had reached his grandmother's ears, Robert thought it prudent, much to his discontent, to intermit his visits to the factory.Mrs.

Falconer, of course, received the rumour with indignant scorn, and peremptorily refused to allow any examination of the premises.

But how have the violin by him and not hear her speak? One evening the longing after her voice grow upon him till he could resist it no longer.He shut the door of his garret-room, and, with Shargar by him, took her out and began to play softly, gently--oh so softly, so gently! Shargar was enraptured.Robert went on playing.

Suddenly the door opened, and his grannie stood awfully revealed before them.Betty had heard the violin, and had flown to the parlour in the belief that, unable to get any one to heed him at the factory, the ghost had taken Janet's advice, and come home.But his wife smiled a smile of contempt, went with Betty to the kitchen--over which Robert's room lay--heard the sounds, put off her creaking shoes, stole up-stairs on her soft white lambswool stockings, and caught the pair.The violin was seized, put in its case, and carried off; and Mrs.Falconer rejoiced to think she had broken a gin set by Satan for the unwary feet of her poor Robert.

Little she knew the wonder of that violin--how it had kept the soul of her husband alive! Little she knew how dangerous it is to shut an open door, with ever so narrow a peep into the eternal, in the face of a son of Adam! And little she knew how determinedly and restlessly a nature like Robert's would search for another, to open one possibly which she might consider ten times more dangerous than that which she had closed.

When Alexander heard of the affair, he was at first overwhelmed with the misfortune; but gathering a little heart at last, he set to 'working,' as he said himself, 'like a verra deevil'; and as he was the best shoemaker in the town, and for the time abstained utterly from whisky, and all sorts of drink but well-water, he soon managed to save the money necessary, and redeem the old fiddle.But whether it was from fancy, or habit, or what, even Robert's inexperienced ear could not accommodate itself, save under protest, to the instrument which once his teacher had considered all but perfect;and it needed the master's finest touch to make its tone other than painful to the sense of the neophyte.

No one can estimate too highly the value of such a resource to a man like the shoemaker, or a boy like Robert.Whatever it be that keeps the finer faculties of the mind awake, wonder alive, and the interest above mere eating and drinking, money-making and money-saving; whatever it be that gives gladness, or sorrow, or hope--this, be it violin, pencil, pen, or, highest of all, the love of woman, is simply a divine gift of holy influence for the salvation of that being to whom it comes, for the lifting of him out of the mire and up on the rock.For it keeps a way open for the entrance of deeper, holier, grander influences, emanating from the same riches of the Godhead.And though many have genius that have no grace, they will only be so much the worse, so much the nearer to the brute, if you take from them that which corresponds to Dooble Sanny's fiddle.