'I dinna richtly ken what ye mean by that; but I'm thinkin' it was muckle the same kin' o' faith 'at the prodigal had; for they baith rase an' gaed hame.'
''Deed, maybe ye're richt, laddie,' returned Mrs. Falconer, after a moment's thought. 'We'll houp the best.'
All the remainder of the evening she sat motionless, with her eyes fixed on the rug before her, thinking, no doubt, of the repentance and salvation of the fiddler, and what hope there might yet be for her own lost son.
The next day being Saturday, Robert set out for Bodyfauld, taking the violin with him. He went alone, for he was in no mood for Shargar's company. It was a fine spring day, the woods were budding, and the fragrance of the larches floated across his way. There was a lovely sadness in the sky, and in the motions of the air, and in the scent of the earth—as if they all knew that fine things were at hand which never could be so beautiful as those that had gone away. And Robert wondered how it was that everything should look so different. Even Bodyfauld seemed to have lost its enchantment, though his friends were as kind as ever. Mr. Lammie went into a rage at the story of the lost violin, and Miss Lammie cried from sympathy with Robert's distress at the fate of his bonny leddy. Then he came to the occasion of his visit, which was to beg Mr. Lammie, when next he went to Aberdeen, to take the soutar's fiddle, and get what he could for it, to help his widow.
'Poor Sanny!' said Robert, 'it never cam' intil 's heid to sell her, nae mair nor gin she had been the auld wife 'at he ca'd her.'
Mr. Lammie undertook the commission; and the next time he saw Robert, handed him ten pounds as the result of the negotiation. It was all Robert could do, however, to get the poor woman to take the money. She looked at it with repugnance, almost as if it had been the price of blood. But Robert having succeeded in overcoming her scruples, she did take it, and therewith provide a store of sweeties, and reels of cotton, and tobacco, for sale in Sanny's workshop. She certainly did not make money by her merchandise, for her anxiety to be honest rose to the absurd; but she contrived to live without being reduced to prey upon her own gingerbread and rock.
CHAPTER IV. THE ABERDEEN GARRET.
Miss St. John had long since returned from her visit, but having heard how much Robert was taken up with his dying friend, she judged it better to leave her intended proposal of renewing her lessons alone for the present. Meeting him, however, soon after Alexander's death, she introduced the subject, and Robert was enraptured at the prospect of the re-opening of the gates of his paradise. If he did not inform his grandmother of the fact, neither did he attempt to conceal it; but she took no notice, thinking probably that the whole affair would be effectually disposed of by his departure. Till that period arrived, he had a lesson almost every evening, and Miss St. John was surprised to find how the boy had grown since the door was built up. Robert's gratitude grew into a kind of worship.
The evening before his departure for Bodyfauld—whence his grandmother had arranged that he should start for Aberdeen, in order that he might have the company of Mr. Lammie, whom business drew thither about the same time—as he was having his last lesson, Mrs. Forsyth left the room. Thereupon Robert, who had been dejected all day at the thought of the separation from Miss St. John, found his heart beating so violently that he could hardly breathe. Probably she saw his emotion, for she put her hand on the keys, as if to cover it by showing him how some movement was to be better effected. He seized her hand and lifted it to his lips. But when he found that instead of snatching it away, she yielded it, nay gently pressed it to his face, he burst into tears, and dropped on his knees, as if before a goddess.