ird in the adjoining shrubbery.
"And by the bye," said he, as they continued listening, "'tis a long
time, Johnny, since we have had the Cobbler of Kelso." Mr. Puff
forthwith jumped up on a mass of stone, and seating himself in the
proper attitude of one working with his awl, began a favorite
interlude, mimicking a certain son of Crispin, at whose stall Scott
and he had often lingered when they were schoolboys, and a blackbird,
the only companion of his cell, that used to sing to him, while he
talked and whistled to it all day long. With this performance Scott
was always delighted: nothing could be richer than the contrast of the
bird's wild sweet notes, some of which he imitated with wonderful
skill, and the accompaniment of the Cobbler's hoarse cracked {p.162}
voice, uttering all manner of endearing epithets, which Johnny
multiplied and varied in a style worthy of the Old Women in Rabelais
at the birth of Pantagruel. I often wondered that Mathews, who
borrowed so many good things from John Ballantyne, allowed this
Cobbler, which was certainly the masterpiece, to escape him.

Scott himself had probably exceeded that evening the three glasses of
wine sanctioned by his Sangrados. "I never," said Constable, "had
found him so disposed to be communicative about what he meant to do.
Though he had had a return of his illness but the day before, he
continued for an hour or more to walk backwards and forwards on the
green, talking and laughing--he told us he was sure he should make a
hit in a Glasgow weaver, whom he would _ravel up with Rob_; and fairly
outshone the Cobbler, in an extempore dialogue between the bailie and
the cateran--something not unlike what the book gives us as passing in
the Glasgow tolbooth."

Mr. Puff might well exult in the "full and entire success" of this
trip to Abbotsford. His friend had made it a _sine qua non_ with
Constable that he should have a third share in the bookseller's moiety
of the bargain--and though Johnny had no more trouble about the
publishing or selling of Rob Roy than his own Cobbler of Kelso, this
stipulation had secured him a _bonus_ of L1200, before two years
passed. Moreover, one must admire his adroitness in persuading
Constable, during their journey back to Edinburgh, to relieve him of
that fraction of his own old stock, with which his unhazardous share
in the new transaction was burdened. Scott's kindness continued, as
long as John Ballantyne lived, to provide for him a co