et, and knelt over his
violin-case on the grass, where he swaddled the instrument as if it
had been a baby, and bestowed it in its place with unusual care and
solicitude.

"Reuben," said his uncle, as the young man arose, "that's a thing as
never should be done." The young man looked inquiry. "The poor thing's
screwed up to pitch," the old man explained, almost sternly. "Ease her
down, lad, ease her down. The strain upon a fiddle is a thing too little
thought upon. You get a couple o' strong men one o' these days, and make
'em pull at a set of strings, and see if they'll get them up to concert
pitch! I doubt if they'd do it, lad, or anything like. And there's all
that strain on a frail shell like that. I've ached to think of it, many
a time. A man who carries a weight about all day puts it off to go to
bed." "Wondrous delicate an' powerful thing," said old Fuller. "Reminds
you o' some o' them delicate-lookin' women as'll goo through wi' a lot
more in the way o' pain-bearin' than iver a man wool."

"Rubbidge!" said Sennacherib. "You'd think the women bear a lot. They
mek a outcry, to be sure, but theer's a lot more chatter than work about
a woman's sufferin', just as theer is about everythin' else her does.
Dost remember what the vicar said last Sunday was a wick? It 'ud be a
crime, he said, to think as the Lord made the things as is lower in the
scale o' natur' than we be to feel like us. The lower the scale the less
the feelin'. Stands to rayson, that does. I mek no manner of a doubt as
he's got Scripter for it."

"Lower in the scale of natur', Mr. Eld?" said Gold, turning his ascetic
face and mournful eyes upon Sennacherib.

"Theer's two things," returned Sennacherib, "as a man o' sense has no
particular liking to. He'll niver ask to have his cabbage twice b'iled,
nor plain words twice spoke. I said 'Lower in the scale o' na-tur'.' Mek
the most on it."

Sennacherib was short but burly, and between him and Gold there was
very much the sort of contrast which exists between a mastiff and a
deer-hound.

"I will not make the most of it, Mr. Eld," the old man said, with a
transient smile. "I might think poorlier of you than I've a right to if
I did. When a rose is held lower in the scale of natur' than a turnip,
or the mastership in music is gi'en in again the fiddle in favor o' the
hurdy-gurdy, I'll begin to think as you and me is better specimens of
natur's handiwork than this here gracious bit o' sweetness as is c