'Weel, grannie, I haena the least assurance. But I hae the mair houp. Wad ye ken him gin ye saw him?'
'Ken him!' she cried; 'I wad ken him gin he had been no to say four, but forty days i' the sepulchre! My ain Anerew! Hoo cud ye speir sic a queston, laddie?'
'He maun be sair changed, grannie. He maun be turnin' auld by this time.'
'Auld! Sic like 's yersel, laddie.—Hoots, hoots! ye're richt. I am forgettin'. But nanetheless wad I ken him.'
'I wis I kent what he was like. I saw him ance—hardly twise, but a' that I min' upo' wad stan' me in ill stead amo' the streets o' Lonnon.'
'I doobt that,' returned Mrs. Falconer—a form of expression rather oddly indicating sympathetic and somewhat regretful agreement with what has been said. 'But,' she went on, 'I can lat ye see a pictur' o' 'im, though I doobt it winna shaw sae muckle to you as to me. He had it paintit to gie to yer mother upo' their weddin' day. Och hone! She did the like for him; but what cam o' that ane, I dinna ken.'
Mrs. Falconer went into the little closet to the old bureau, and bringing out the miniature, gave it to Robert. It was the portrait of a young man in antiquated blue coat and white waistcoat, looking innocent, and, it must be confessed, dull and uninteresting. It had been painted by a travelling artist, and probably his skill did not reach to expression. It brought to Robert's mind no faintest shadow of recollection. It did not correspond in the smallest degree to what seemed his vague memory, perhaps half imagination, of the tall worn man whom he had seen that Sunday. He could not have a hope that this would give him the slightest aid in finding him of whom it had once been a shadowy resemblance at least.
'Is 't like him, grannie?' he asked.
As if to satisfy herself once more ere she replied, she took the miniature, and gazed at it for some time. Then with a deep hopeless sigh, she answered,
'Ay, it's like him; but it's no himsel'. Eh, the bonny broo, an' the smilin' een o' him!—smilin' upon a'body, an' upo' her maist o' a', till he took to the drink, and waur gin waur can be. It was a' siller an' company—company 'at cudna be merry ohn drunken. Verity their lauchter was like the cracklin' o' thorns aneath a pot. Het watter and whusky was aye the cry efter their denner an' efter their supper, till my puir Anerew tuik till the bare whusky i' the mornin' to fill the ebb o' the toddy. He wad never hae dune as he did but for the whusky. It jist drave oot a' gude and loot in a' ill.'