id richt.--Robert, play a spring.'

Absorbed in his own thoughts, Robert began to play The Ewie wi' the
Crookit Horn.

'Hoots! hoots!' cried Sandy angrily. 'What are ye aboot? Nae mair o'
that. I hae dune wi' that. What's i' the heid o' ye, man?'

'What'll I play than, Sandy?' asked Robert meekly.

'Play The Lan' o' the Leal, or My Nannie's awa,', or something o' that
kin'. I'll be leal to ye noo, Bell. An' we winna pree o' the whusky nae
mair, lass.'

'I canna bide the smell o' 't,' cried Bell, sobbing.

Robert struck in with The Lan' o' the Leal. When he had played it over
two or three times, he laid the fiddle in its place, and departed--able
just to see, by the light of the neglected candle, that Bell sat on the
bedside stroking the rosiny hand of her husband, the rhinoceros-hide of
which was yet delicate enough to let the love through to his heart.

After this the soutar never called his fiddle his auld wife.

Robert walked home with his head sunk on his breast. Dooble Sanny, the
drinking, ranting, swearing soutar, was inside the wicket-gate; and he
was left outside for all his prayers, with the arrows from the castle of
Beelzebub sticking in his back. He would have another try some day--but
not yet--he dared not yet.

Henceforth Robert had more to do in reading the New Testament than in
the fiddle to the soutar, though they never parted without an air or
two. Sandy continued hopeful and generally cheerful, with alternations
which the reading generally fixed on the right side for the night.
Robert never attempted any comments, but left him to take from the
word what nourishment he could. There was no return of strength to the
helpless arm, and his constitution was gradually yielding.

The rumour got abroad that he was a 'changed character,'--how is not far
to seek, for Mr. Maccleary fancied himself the honoured instrument of
his conversion, whereas paralysis and the New Testament were the chief
agents, and even the violin had more share in it than the minister. For
the spirit of God lies all about the spirit of man like a mighty sea,
ready to rush in at the smallest chink in the walls that shut him out
from his own--walls which even the tone of a violin afloat on the wind
of that spirit is sometimes enough to rend from battlement to base, as
the blast of the rams' horns rent the walls of Jericho. And now to the
day of his death, the shoemaker had need of nothing. Food, wine, and
delicacies were sent him