side, there was a recess railed with iron, perhaps two feet wide
and four long, which stood for orchestra and seats of honour. In
the one balcony, five slatternly Irish lasses sat woven in a comely
group. In the other was posted Orpheus, his body, which was
convulsively in motion, forming an odd contrast to his somnolent,
imperturbable Scots face. His brother, a dark man with a vehement,
interested countenance, who made a god of the fiddler, sat by with
open mouth, drinking in the general admiration and throwing out
remarks to kindle it.

'That's a bonny hornpipe now,' he would say, 'it's a great
favourite with performers; they dance the sand dance to it.' And
he expounded the sand dance. Then suddenly, it would be a long,
'Hush!' with uplifted finger and glowing, supplicating eyes, 'he's
going to play "Auld Robin Gray" on one string!' And throughout
this excruciating movement,--'On one string, that's on one string!'
he kept crying. I would have given something myself that it had
been on none; but the hearers were much awed. I called for a tune
or two, and thus introduced myself to the notice of the brother,
who directed his talk to me for some little while, keeping, I need
hardly mention, true to his topic, like the seamen to the star.
'He's grand of it,' he said confidentially. 'His master was a
music-hall man.' Indeed the music-hall man had left his mark, for
our fiddler was ignorant of many of our best old airs; 'Logie o'
Buchan,' for instance, he only knew as a quick, jigging figure in a
set of quadrilles, and had never heard it called by name. Perhaps,
after all, the brother was the more interesting performer of the
two. I have spoken with him afterwards repeatedly, and found him
always the same quick, fiery bit of a man, not without brains; but
he never showed to such advantage as when he was thus squiring the