Robert drew the recovered treasure from its concealment, opened the
case with trembling eagerness, and was stooping, with one hand on
the neck of the violin, and the other on the bow, to lift them from
it, when Shargar stopped him.
His success had given him such dignity, that for once he dared to
act from himself.
'Betty 'll hear ye,' he said.
'What care I for Betty? She daurna tell. I ken hoo to manage her.'
'But wadna 't be better 'at she didna ken?'
'She's sure to fin' oot whan she mak's the bed. She turns 't ower
and ower jist like a muckle tyke (dog) worryin' a rottan (rat).'
'De'il a bit o' her s' be a hair wiser! Ye dinna play tunes upo'
the boxie, man.'
Robert caught at the idea. He lifted the 'bonny leddy' from her
coffin; and while he was absorbed in the contemplation of her risen
beauty, Shargar laid his hands on Boston's Four-fold State, the
torment of his life on the Sunday evenings which it was his turn to
spend with Mrs. Falconer, and threw it as an offering to the powers
of Hades into the case, which he then buried carefully, with the
feather-bed for mould, the blankets for sod, and the counterpane
studiously arranged for stone, over it. He took heed, however, not
to let Robert know of the substitution of Boston for the fiddle,
because he knew Robert could not tell a lie. Therefore, when he
murmured over the volume some of its own words which he had read the
preceding Sunday, it was in a quite inaudible whisper: 'Now is it
good for nothing but to cumber the ground, and furnish fuel for
Tophet.
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