Are they a' weel?'
'Ay, brawly,' answered Shargar, putting the shilling in his pocket.
In another moment Shargar had, without a word of adieu, embezzled
the shoes, and escaped from the house without seeing Betty. He went
straight to the shop he had just left, and bought another shilling's
worth of string.
When he got home, he concealed nothing from Robert, whom he found
seated in the barn, with his fiddle, waiting his return.
Robert started to his feet. He could appropriate his grandfather's
violin, to which, possibly, he might have shown as good a right as
his grandmother--certainly his grandfather would have accorded it
him--but her money was sacred.
'Shargar, ye vratch!' he cried, 'fess that shillin' here direckly.
Tak the twine wi' ye, and gar them gie ye back the shillin'.'
'They winna brak the bargain,' cried Shargar, beginning almost to
whimper, for a savoury smell of dinner was coming across the yard.
'Tell them it's stown siller, and they'll be in het watter aboot it
gin they dinna gie ye 't back.'
'I maun hae my denner first,' remonstrated Shargar.
But the spirit of his grandmother was strong in Robert, and in a
matter of rectitude there must be no temporizing. Therein he could
be as tyrannical as the old lady herself.
'De'il a bite or a sup s' gang ower your thrapple till I see that
shillin'.'
There was no help for it. Six hungry miles must be trudged by
Shargar ere he got a morsel to eat.
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