nd Shargar went to school
together, and learned their lessons together at Mrs. Falconer's table.
Shargar soon learned to behave with tolerable propriety; was obedient,
as far as eye-service went; looked as queer as ever; did what he
pleased, which was nowise very wicked, the moment he was out of the old
lady's sight; was well fed and well cared for; and when he was asked how
he was, gave the invariable answer: 'Middlin'.' He was not very happy.

There was little communication in words between the two boys, for the
one had not much to say, and the pondering fits of the other grew
rather than relaxed in frequency and intensity. Yet amongst chance
acquaintances in the town Robert had the character of a wag, of which
he was totally unaware himself. Indeed, although he had more than the
ordinary share of humour, I suspect it was not so much his fun as his
earnest that got him the character; for he would say such altogether
unheard-of and strange things, that the only way they were capable of
accounting for him was as a humorist.

'Eh!' he said once to Elshender, during a pause common to a
thunder-storm and a lesson on the violin 'eh! wadna ye like to be up in
that clood wi' a spaud, turnin' ower the divots and catchin' the flashes
lyin' aneath them like lang reid fiery worms?'

'Ay, man, but gin ye luik up to the cloods that gait, ye'll never be
muckle o' a fiddler.'

This was merely an outbreak of that insolence of advice so often shown
to the young from no vantage-ground but that of age and faithlessness,
reminding one of the 'jigging fool' who interfered between Brutus and
Cassius on the sole ground that he had seen more years than they. As if
ever a fiddler that did not look up to the clouds would be anything but
a catgut-scraper! Even Elshender's fiddle was the one angel that held
back the heavy curtain of his gross nature, and let the sky shine
through. He ought to have been set fiddling every Sunday morning, and
from his fiddling dragged straight to church. It was the only thing man
could have done for his conversion, for then his heart was open, But I
fear the prayers would have closed it before the sermon came. He should
rather have been compelled to take his fiddle to church with him, and
have a gentle scrape at it in the pauses of the service; only there are
no such pauses in the service, alas! And Dooble Sanny, though not too
religious to get drunk occasionally, was a great deal too religious to
play his fidd