“What sort of a woman?” he asked the girl.
“A decent-lookin’ workin’-like body,” she answered. “I couldna see her verra weel, it’s sae foggy the nicht aboot the door.”
“Tell her we’re at dinner; she may call again in an hour. Or if she likes to leave a message—Stay: tell her to come again to-morrow morning.—I wonder who she is,” he added, turning, he thought, to Gibbie.
But Gibbie was gone. He had passed behind his chair, and all he saw of him was his back as he followed the girl from the room. In his eagerness he left the door open, and they saw him dart to the visitor, shake hands with her in evident delight, and begin pulling her towards the room.
Now Mistress Croale, though nowise inclined to quail before the minister, would not willingly have intruded herself upon him, especially while he sat at dinner with his rather formidable lady; but she fancied, for she stood where she could not see into the dining-room, that Gibbie was taking her where they might have a quiet news together, and, occupied with her bonnet or some other source of feminine disquiet, remained thus mistaken until she stood on the threshold, when, looking up, she started, stopped, made an obedience to the minister, and another to the minister’s lady, and stood doubtful, if not a little abashed.
“Not here! my good woman,” said Mr. Sclater, rising. “—Oh, it’s you, Mistress Croale!—I will speak to you in the hall.”
Mrs. Croale’s face flushed, and she drew back a step. But Gibbie still held her, and with a look to Mr. Sclater that should have sent straight to his heart the fact that she was dear to his soul, kept drawing her into the room; he wanted her to take his chair at the table. It passed swiftly through her mind that one who had been so intimate both with Sir George and Sir Gibbie in the old time, and had given the latter his tea every Sunday night for so long, might surely, even in such changed circumstances, be allowed to enter the same room with him, however grand it might be; and involuntarily almost she yielded half a doubtful step, while Mr. Sclater, afraid of offending Sir Gilbert, hesitated on the advance to prevent her. How friendly the warm air felt! how consoling the crimson walls with the soft flicker of the great fire upon them! how delicious the odour of the cockie-leekie! She could give up whisky a good deal more easily, she thought, if she had the comforts of a minister to fall back upon! And this was the same minister who had once told her that her soul was as precious to him as that of any other in his parish—and then driven her from respectable Jink Lane to the disreputable Daurfoot! It all passed through her mind in a flash, while yet Gibbie pulled and she resisted.
“Gilbert, come here,” called Mrs. Sclater.
He went to her side, obedient and trusting as a child.
“Really, Gilbert, you must not,” she said, rather loud for a whisper. “It won’t do to turn things upside down this way. If you are to be a gentleman, and an inmate of my house, you must behave like other people. I cannot have a woman like that sitting at my table.—Do you know what sort of a person she is?” Gibbie’s face shone up. He raised his hands. He was already able to talk a little.