ed, and comparatively well-lighted
little room, but not with the other, which was three times its size,
very badly lighted, and showing the naked couples from roof-tree to
floor. Besides, it contained no end of dark corners, with which his
childish imagination had associated undefined horrors, assuming now one
shape, now another. Also there were several closets in it, constructed
in the angles of the place, and several chests--two of which he had
ventured to peep into. But although he had found them filled, not with
bones, as he had expected, but one with papers, and one with garments,
he had yet dared to carry his researches no further. One evening,
however, when Betty was out, and he had got hold of her candle, and gone
up to keep Shargar company for a few minutes, a sudden impulse seized
him to have a peep into all the closets. One of them he knew a little
about, as containing, amongst other things, his father's coat with
the gilt buttons, and his great-grandfather's kilt, as well as other
garments useful to Shargar: now he would see what was in the rest. He
did not find anything very interesting, however, till he arrived at
the last. Out of it he drew a long queer-shaped box into the light of
Betty's dip.

'Luik here, Shargar!' he said under his breath, for they never dared to
speak aloud in these precincts--'luik here! What can there be in this
box? Is't a bairnie's coffin, duv ye think? Luik at it.'

In this case Shargar, having roamed the country a good deal more than
Robert, and having been present at some merry-makings with his mother,
of which there were comparatively few in that country-side, was better
informed than his friend.

'Eh! Bob, duvna ye ken what that is? I thocht ye kent a' thing. That's a
fiddle.'

'That's buff an' styte (stuff and nonsense), Shargar. Do ye think I
dinna ken a fiddle whan I see ane, wi' its guts ootside o' 'ts wame, an'
the thoomacks to screw them up wi' an' gar't skirl?'

'Buff an' styte yersel'!' cried Shargar, in indignation, from the bed.
'Gie's a haud o' 't.'

Robert handed him the case. Shargar undid the hooks in a moment, and
revealed the creature lying in its shell like a boiled bivalve.

'I tellt ye sae!' he exclaimed triumphantly. 'Maybe ye'll lippen to me
(trust me) neist time.'

'An' I tellt you,' retorted Robert, with an equivocation altogether
unworthy of his growing honesty. 'I was cocksure that cudna be a fiddle.
There's the fiddle i' the hert o' 't! Los