I thought the proposal a good one, and got a cab the same afternoon, and drove out towards Penicuick, then by some cross roads, through which the cabman was unerringly directed by Finnigan, we reached the farm in question. Here I was not surprised to learn that nothing was known of the Gows who had formerly occupied the farm. Gow himself was dead, and his surviving relations gone, none knew whither; but, in the course of my inquiries, I came across an old man—a ploughman or farm worker, who had served with Gow for many years, and to him I turned as a kind of forlorn hope, though, as it happened, I could not have hit upon a better if I had hunted for years.
“It’s about an old fiddle that was sold at the roup when the old man died,” I explained, in rather a loud key, for the old man was a little deaf. “It was broken at the time, and was sold for five shillings.”
“I mind o’d perfectly,” said the old man. “It was the fiddle that we fund on the road gaun to market. The maister was on ae cairt and me on the tither; and it was quite dark at the time, but there was a heavy rime on the grund, and the fiddle was in a black case, and I noticed it as we drave by, and stoppit my cairt to pick it up. The maister stoppit his too, and then when he had lookit at the fiddle, and tried hoo the strings soonded, he said, ‘Them ’at finds keeps, Sandy. I’ll gi’e ye five shillings to yoursel’, an we’ll say naething aboot this to naebody.’ So we shoved it in alow the strae, and there it lay till we got back frae Em’bro’. The maister played on it, and likit it better nor his ain; but on the Saturday after he cam’ to my hoose late at nicht, wi’ the case and fiddle in his hand, and said, kind o’ excited like, ‘Sandy, in case onybody should ask after this fiddle I think we’d better pit it ooten sicht for a wee. Get your shuill, and dig a hole ony place where it’s no likely to be disturbed.’”
“And you did it?”
“Deed did I. I dug a hole, and the fiddle and case lay there for mair nor a year. But it was never claimed, and we got it oot, and he played on it for a while, but the damp ground had spoiled it in some way, and he never likit it sae weel as at first. Then it gaed in twa ae day in his hands, and was put awa in a bag till the day o’ the sale.”
“And what became of the case?” I asked, with great eagerness.
“Ou, the maister used it for a long time to haud ane o’ his ain fiddles, and it went wi’ it at the sale to Thompson o’ the Mains.”
“Was there not a brass plate on it bearing a name?”
“A brass plate? I raither think there was a brass plate on it when we fund it, but I never saw it after. Maybe the maister had ta’en it aff.”
“Not unlikely,” I dryly observed. “Did you never hear of the fiddle being advertised for?”