r play,
and deprived of his usual consolation of drink, was very testy and
unmanageable. If Robert, who strove to do his best, in the hope
of alleviating the poor fellow's sufferings--chiefly those of the
mind--happened to mistake the time or to draw a false note from the
violin, Sandy would swear as if he had been the Grand Turk and Robert
one of his slaves. But Robert was too vexed with himself, when he
gave occasion to such an outburst, to mind the outburst itself.
And invariably when such had taken place, the shoemaker would ask
forgiveness before he went. Holding out his left hand, from which
nothing could efface the stains of rosin and lamp-black and heel-ball,
save the sweet cleansing of mother-earth, he would say,

'Robert, ye'll jist pit the sweirin' doon wi' the lave (rest), an' score
't oot a'thegither. I'm an ill-tongued vratch, an' I'm beginnin' to see
't. But, man, ye're jist behavin' to me like God himsel', an' gin it
warna for you, I wad jist lie here roarin' an' greitin' an' damnin' frae
mornin' to nicht.--Ye will be in the morn's night--willna ye?' he would
always end by asking with some anxiety.

'Of coorse I will,' Robert would answer.

'Gude nicht, than, gude nicht.--I'll try and get a sicht o' my sins ance
mair,' he added, one evening. 'Gin I could only be a wee bit sorry for
them, I reckon he wad forgie me. Dinna ye think he wad, Robert?'

'Nae doobt, nae doobt,' answered Robert hurriedly. 'They a' say 'at gin
a man repents the richt gait, he'll forgie him.'

He could not say more than 'They say,' for his own horizon was all dark,
and even in saying this much he felt like a hypocrite. A terrible waste,
heaped thick with the potsherds of hope, lay outside that door of prayer
which he had, as he thought, nailed up for ever.

'An' what is the richt gait?' asked the soutar.

''Deed, that's mair nor I ken, Sandy,' answered Robert mournfully.

'Weel, gin ye dinna ken, what's to come o' me?' said Alexander
anxiously.

'Ye maun speir at himsel',' returned Robert, 'an' jist tell him 'at ye
dinna ken, but ye'll do onything 'at he likes.'

With these words he took his leave hurriedly, somewhat amazed to find
that he had given the soutar the strange advice to try just what he had
tried so unavailingly himself. And stranger still, he found himself,
before he reached home, praying once more in his heart--both for Dooble
Sanny and for himself. From that hour a faint hope was within him that
some day