''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 he might try again, though he dared not yet encounter such effort and agony.
All this time he had never doubted that there was God; nor had he ventured to say within himself that perhaps God was not good; he had simply come to the conclusion that for him there was no approach to the fountain of his being.
In the course of a fortnight or so, when his system had covered over its craving after whisky, the irritability of the shoemaker almost vanished. It might have been feared that his conscience would then likewise relax its activity; but it was not so: it grew yet more tender. He now began to give Robert some praise, and make allowances for his faults, and Robert dared more in consequence, and played with more spirit. I do not say that his style could have grown fine under such a master, but at least he learned the difference between slovenliness and accuracy, and between accuracy and expression, which last is all of original that the best mere performer can claim.
One evening he was scraping away at Tullochgorum when Mr. Maccleary walked in. Robert ceased. The minister gave him one searching glance, and sat down by the bedside. Robert would have left the room.
'Dinna gang, Robert,' said Sandy, and Robert remained.
The clergyman talked very faithfully as far as the shoemaker was concerned; though whether he was equally faithful towards God might be questioned. He was one of those prudent men, who are afraid of dealing out the truth freely lest it should fall on thorns or stony places. Hence of course the good ground came in for a scanty share too. Believing that a certain precise condition of mind was necessary for its proper reception, he would endeavour to bring about that condition first. He did not know that the truth makes its own nest in the ready heart, and that the heart may be ready for it before the priest can perceive the fact, seeing that the imposition of hands confers, now-a-days at least, neither love nor common-sense. He therefore dwelt upon the sins of the soutar, magnifying them and making them hideous, in the idea that thus he magnified the law, and made it honourable, while of the special tenderness of God to the sinner he said not a word. Robert was offended, he scarcely knew why, with the minister's mode of treating his friend; and after Mr. Maccleary had taken a far kinder leave of them than God could approve, if he resembled his representation, Robert sat still, oppressed with darkness.
'It's a' true,' said the soutar; 'but, man Robert, dinna ye think the minister was some sair upo' me?'