Yet the points of those fingers never lost the delicacy of their touch.

Some people thought this was in virtue of their being washed only once a week--a custom Alexander justified on the ground that, in a trade like his, it was of no use to wash oftener, for he would be just as dirty again before night.
The moment he began to play, the face of the soutar grew ecstatic.

He stopped at the very first note, notwithstanding, let fall his arms, the one with the bow, the other with the violin, at his sides, and said, with a deep-drawn respiration and lengthened utterance: 'Eh!' Then after a pause, during which he stood motionless: 'The crater maun be a Cry Moany! Hear till her!' he added, drawing another long note.
Then, after another pause: 'She's a Straddle Vawrious at least! Hear till her.

I never had sic a combination o' timmer and catgut atween my cleuks (claws) afore.' As to its being a Stradivarius, or even a Cremona at all, the testimony of Dooble Sanny was not worth much on the point.

But the shoemaker's admiration roused in the boy's mind a reverence for the individual instrument which he never lost.
From that day the two were friends.
Suddenly the soutar started off at full speed in a strathspey, which was soon lost in the wail of a Highland psalm-tune, giving place in its turn to 'Sic a wife as Willie had!' And on he went without pause, till Robert dared not stop any longer.