ard through keyholes.'

So saying, he kept moving on through the revellers in the kitchen; and
Nixon, holding Darsie by his arm, as if to offer the lady support but
in all probability to frustrate any effort at escape, moved through the
crowd, which presented a very motley appearance, consisting of domestic
servants, country fellows, seamen, and other idlers, whom Wandering
Willie was regaling with his music.

To pass another friend without intimation of his presence would have
been actual pusillanimity; and just when they were passing the blind
man's elevated seat, Darsie asked him with some emphasis, whether he
could not play a Scottish air? The man's face had been the instant
before devoid of all sort of expression, going through his performance
like a clown through a beautiful country, too much accustomed to
consider it as a task, to take any interest in the performance, and, in
fact, scarce seeming to hear the noise that he was creating. In a
word, he might at the time have made a companion to my friend Wilkie's
inimitable blind crowder. But with Wandering Willie this was only an
occasional and a rare fit of dullness, such as will at times creep over
all the professors of the fine arts, arising either from fatigue, or
contempt of the present audience, or that caprice which so often tempts
painters and musicians and great actors, in the phrase of the latter, to
walk through their part, instead of exerting themselves with the energy
which acquired their fame. But when the performer heard the voice of
Darsie, his countenance became at once illuminated, and showed the
complete mistake of those who suppose that the principal point of
expression depends upon the eyes. With his face turned to the point from
which the sound came, his upper lip a little curved, and quivering with
agitation, and with a colour which surprise and pleasure had brought at
once into his faded cheek, he exchanged the humdrum hornpipe which he
had been sawing out with reluctant and lazy bow, for the fine Scottish
air,

You're welcome, Charlie Stuart,

which flew from his strings as if by inspiration and after a breathless
pause of admiration among the audience, was received with a clamour of
applause, which seemed to show that the name and tendency, as well as
the execution of the tune, was in the highest degree acceptable to all
the party assembled.

In the meantime, Cristal Nixon, still keeping hold of Darsie, and
following the landlord,