Robert Falconer. George MacDonald
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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! Losh! I min’ noo. It maun be my grandfather’s fiddle ‘at I hae heard tell o’.’
‘No to ken a fiddle-case!’ reflected Shargar, with as much of contempt as it was possible for him to show.
‘I tell ye what, Shargar,’ returned Robert, indignantly; ‘ye may ken the box o’ a fiddle better nor I do, but de’il hae me gin I dinna ken the fiddle itsel’ raither better nor ye do in a fortnicht frae this time. I s’ tak’ it to Dooble Sanny; he can play the fiddle fine. An’ I’ll play ‘t too, or the de’il s’ be in’t.’
‘Eh, man, that ‘ll be gran’!’ cried Shargar, incapable of jealousy. ‘We can gang to a’ the markets thegither and gaither baubees (halfpence).’
To this anticipation Robert returned no reply, for, hearing Betty come in, he judged it time to restore the violin to its case, and Betty’s candle to the kitchen, lest she should invade the upper regions in search of it. But that very night he managed to have an interview with Dooble Sanny, the shoemaker, and it was arranged between them that Robert should bring his violin on the evening at which my story has now arrived.
Whatever motive he had for seeking to commence the study of music, it holds even in more important matters that, if the thing pursued be good, there is a hope of the pursuit purifying the motive. And Robert no sooner heard the fiddle utter a few mournful sounds in the hands of the soutar, who was no contemptible performer, than he longed to establish such a relation between himself and the strange instrument, that, dumb and deaf as it had been to him hitherto, it would respond to his touch also, and tell him the secrets of its queerly-twisted skull, full of sweet sounds instead of brains. From that moment he would be a musician for music’s own sake, and forgot utterly what had appeared to him, though I doubt if it was, the sole motive of his desire to learn—namely, the necessity of retaining his superiority over Shargar.
What added considerably to the excitement of his feelings on the occasion, was the expression of reverence, almost of awe, with which the shoemaker took the instrument from its case, and the tenderness with which he handled it. The fact was that he had not had a violin in his hands for nearly a year, having been compelled to pawn his own in order to alleviate the sickness brought on his wife by his own ill-treatment of her, once that he came home drunk from a wedding. It was strange to think that such dirty hands should be able to bring such sounds out of the instrument the moment he got it safely cuddled under his cheek. So dirty were they, that it was said Dooble Sanny never required to carry any rosin with him for fiddler’s need, his own fingers having always enough upon them for one bow at least. Yet the points of those fingers never lost the delicacy of their touch. Some people thought this was in virtue of their being washed only once a week—a custom Alexander justified on the ground that, in a trade like his, it was of no use to wash oftener, for he would be just as dirty again before night.
The moment he began to play, the face of the soutar grew ecstatic. He stopped at the very first note, notwithstanding, let fall his arms, the one with the bow, the other with the violin, at his sides, and said, with a deep-drawn respiration and lengthened utterance:
‘Eh!’
Then after a pause, during which he stood motionless:
‘The crater maun be a Cry Moany! Hear till her!’ he added, drawing another long note.
Then, after another pause:
‘She’s a Straddle Vawrious at least! Hear till her. I never had sic a combination o’ timmer and catgut atween my cleuks (claws) afore.’
As to its being a Stradivarius, or even a Cremona at all, the testimony of Dooble Sanny was not worth much on the point. But the shoemaker’s admiration roused in the boy’s mind a reverence for the individual instrument which he never lost.
From that day the two were friends.
Suddenly the soutar started off at full speed in a strathspey, which was soon lost in the wail of a Highland psalm-tune, giving place in its turn to ‘Sic a wife as Willie had!’ And on he went without pause, till Robert dared not stop any longer. The fiddle had bewitched the fiddler.
‘Come as aften ‘s ye like, Robert, gin ye fess this leddy wi’ ye,’ said the soutar.
And he stroked the back of the violin tenderly with his open palm.
‘But wad ye hae ony objection to lat it lie aside ye, and lat me come whan I can?’
‘Objection, laddie? I wad as sune objeck to lattin’ my ain wife lie aside me.’
‘Ay,’ said Robert, seized with some anxiety about the violin as he remembered the fate of the wife, ‘but ye ken Elspet comes aff a’ the waur sometimes.’
Softened by the proximity of the wonderful violin, and stung afresh by the boy’s words as his conscience had often stung him before, for he loved his wife dearly save when the demon of drink possessed him, the tears rose in Elshender’s eyes. He held out the violin to Robert, saying, with unsteady voice:
‘Hae, tak her awa’. I dinna deserve to hae sic a thing i’ my hoose. But hear me, Robert, and lat hearin’ be believin’. I never was sae drunk but I cud tune my fiddle. Mair by token, ance they fand me lyin’ o’ my back i’ the Corrie, an’ the watter, they say, was ower a’ but the mou’ o’ me; but I was haudin’ my fiddle up abune my heid, and de’il a spark o’ watter was upo’ her.’
‘It’s a pity yer wife wasna yer fiddle, than, Sanny,’ said Robert, with more presumption than wit.
‘’Deed ye’re i’ the richt, there, Robert. Hae, tak’ yer fiddle.’
‘’Deed no,’ returned Robert. ‘I maun jist lippen (trust) to ye, Sanders. I canna bide langer the nicht; but maybe ye’ll tell me hoo to haud her the neist time ‘at I come—will ye?’
‘That I wull, Robert, come whan ye like. An’ gin ye come o’ ane ‘at cud play this fiddle as this fiddle deserves to be playt, ye’ll do me credit.’
‘Ye min’ what that sumph Lumley said to me the ither nicht, Sanders, aboot my grandfather?’
‘Ay, weel eneuch. A dish o’ drucken havers!’
‘It was true eneuch aboot my great-grandfather, though.’
‘No! Was’t railly?’
‘Ay. He was the best piper in ‘s regiment at Culloden. Gin they had a’ fouchten as he pipit, there wad hae been anither tale to tell. And he was toon-piper forby, jist like you, Sanders, efter they took frae him a’ ‘at he had.’
‘Na! heard ye ever the like o’ that! Weel, wha wad hae thocht it? Faith! we maun hae you fiddle as weel as yer lucky-daiddy pipit.—But here’s the King o’ Bashan comin’ efter his butes, an’ them no half dune yet!’ exclaimed Dooble Sanny, settling in haste to his awl and his lingel (Fr. ligneul). ‘He’ll be roarin’ mair like a bull o’ the country than the king o’ ‘t.’
As Robert departed, Peter Ogg came in, and as he passed the window, he heard the shoemaker averring:
‘I haena risen frae my stule sin’ ane o’clock; but there’s a sicht to be dune to them, Mr. Ogg.’
Indeed, Alexander ab Alexandro, as Mr. Innes facetiously styled him, was in more ways than one worthy of the name of Dooble. There seemed to be two natures in the man, which all his music