'Haud ye to that, my lad,' returned Mr. Lammie. 'Lat the lasses greit for ye gin they like; but haud oot ower frae the kissin'. I wadna mell wi' 't.'
'Hoot, father, dinna put sic nonsense i' the bairns' heids,' said Miss Lammie.
'Whilk 's the nonsense, Aggy?' asked her father, slily. 'But I doobt,' he added, 'he'll never play the Flooers o' the Forest as it suld be playt, till he's had a taste o' the kissin', lass.'
'Weel, it's a queer instructor o' yowth, 'at says an' onsays i' the same breith.'
'Never ye min'. I haena contradickit mysel' yet; for I hae said naething. But, Robert, my man, ye maun pit mair sowl into yer fiddlin'. Ye canna play the fiddle till ye can gar 't greit. It's unco ready to that o' 'ts ain sel'; an' it's my opingon that there's no anither instrument but the fiddle fit to play the Flooers o' the Forest upo', for that very rizzon, in a' his Maijesty's dominions.—My father playt the fiddle, but no like your gran'father.'
Robert was silent. He spent the whole of the next morning in reiterated attempts to alter his style of playing the air in question, but in vain—as far at least as any satisfaction to himself was the result. He laid the instrument down in despair, and sat for an hour disconsolate upon the bedside. His visit had not as yet been at all so fertile in pleasure as he had anticipated. He could not fly his kite; he could not walk; he had lost his shoes; Mr. Lammie had not approved of his playing; and, although he had his will of the fiddle, he could not get his will out of it. He could never play so as to please Miss St. John. Nothing but manly pride kept him from crying. He was sorely disappointed and dissatisfied; and the world might be dreary even at Bodyfauld.
Few men can wait upon the bright day in the midst of the dull one. Nor can many men even wait for it.
CHAPTER XX. JESSIE HEWSON.
The wound on Robert's foot festered, and had not yet healed when the sickle was first put to the barley. He hobbled out, however, to the reapers, for he could not bear to be left alone with his violin, so dreadfully oppressive was the knowledge that he could not use it after its nature. He began to think whether his incapacity was not a judgment upon him for taking it away from the soutar, who could do so much more with it, and to whom, consequently, it was so much more valuable. The pain in his foot, likewise, had been very depressing; and but for the kindness of his friends, especially of Miss Lammie, he would have been altogether 'a weary wight forlorn.'