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Updated: June 26, 2025
Then he went to a corner of his sitting-room, and from beneath the table drew out a long box, and from the box lifted Dooble Sandy's auld wife, tuned the somewhat neglected strings, and laid the instrument on the table.
It had been bought by a retired naval officer, who lived in it with his wife the only Englishwoman in the place, until the arrival, at The Boar's Head, of the lady so much admired by Dooble Sanny. Robert was up-stairs when Betty emptied her news-bag, and so heard nothing of this bit of gossip.
'Saw ye ever sic a sicht in oor toon afore! said Dooble Sanny, as people generally called him, his name being Alexander Alexander, pronounced, by those who chose to speak of him with the ordinary respect due from one mortal to another, Sandy Elshender. Double Sandy was a soutar, or shoemaker, remarkable for his love of sweet sounds and whisky.
The laugh again rose at Lumley's expense, who was well known to have tried his hand at most things, and succeeded in nothing. Dooble Sanny was especially delighted. 'De'il hae ye for a de'il's brat! 'At I suld sweer! was all Lumley's reply, as he sought to conceal his mortification by attempting to join in the laugh against himself.
When, with uncertain hand, he had opened at length, he went straight to the nest of his treasure, and Robert slipping out noiselessly, was in the next street before Dooble Sanny, having found the fiddle uninjured, and not discovering the substitution, had finished concluding that the whisky and his imagination had played him a very discourteous trick between them, and retired once more to bed.
Entering the narrow passage from which his shop door opened, and hearing him hammering away at a sole, he stood and unfolded his treasure, then drew a low sigh from her with his bow, and awaited the result. He heard the lap-stone fall thundering on the floor, and, like a spider from his cavern, Dooble Sanny appeared in the door, with the bend-leather in one hand, and the hammer in the other.
And he would make friends once more with the much 'suffering instrument' he had so wrongfully despised. The following night, he left his books on the table, and the house itself behind him, and sped like a grayhound to Dooble Sanny's shop, lifted the latch, and entered.
Next day, his foot was so much better that he sent Shargar to Rothieden to buy the string, taking with him Robert's school-bag, in which to carry off his Sunday shoes; for as to those left at Dooble Sanny's, they judged it unsafe to go in quest of them: the soutar could hardly be in a humour fit to be intruded upon. Having procured the string, Shargar went to Mrs. Falconer's.
As Robert came home from school, wondering what could have become of his companion, he saw a crowd about his grandmother's door, and pushing his way through it in some dismay, found Dooble Sanny and Shargar confronting each other before the stern justice of Mrs. Falconer. 'Ye're a leear, the soutar was panting out. 'I haena had a pair o' shune o' Robert's i' my han's this three month.
It was no wonder that Andrew Falconer should be sitting with his head in his hands when Robert looked in on him, for he had read this letter. When Robert saw how he sat, he withdrew, and took his violin again, and played all the tunes of the old country he could think of, recalling Dooble Sandy's workshop, that he might recall the music he had learnt there.
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