table. Shargar soon learned to behave with tolerable propriety; was
obedient, as far as eye-service went; looked as queer as ever; did
what he pleased, which was nowise very wicked, the moment he was out
of the old lady's sight; was well fed and well cared for; and when
he was asked how he was, gave the invariable answer: 'Middlin'.' He
was not very happy.

There was little communication in words between the two boys, for
the one had not much to say, and the pondering fits of the other
grew rather than relaxed in frequency and intensity. Yet amongst
chance acquaintances in the town Robert had the character of a wag,
of which he was totally unaware himself. Indeed, although he had
more than the ordinary share of humour, I suspect it was not so much
his fun as his earnest that got him the character; for he would say
such altogether unheard-of and strange things, that the only way
they were capable of accounting for him was as a humorist.

'Eh!' he said once to Elshender, during a pause common to a
thunder-storm and a lesson on the violin 'eh! wadna ye like to be up
in that clood wi' a spaud, turnin' ower the divots and catchin' the
flashes lyin' aneath them like lang reid fiery worms?'

'Ay, man, but gin ye luik up to the cloods that gait, ye'll never be
muckle o' a fiddler.'

This was merely an outbreak of that insolence of advice so often
shown to the young from no vantage-ground but that of age and
faithlessness, reminding one of the 'jigging fool' who interfered
between Brutus and Cassius on the sole ground that he had seen more
years than they. As if ever a fiddler that did not look up to the