“You really must, Mr. Sclater, teach him the absurdity of attempting to fit every point of his behaviour to—to—words which were of course quite suitable to the time when they were spoken, but which it is impossible to take literally now-a-days—as impossible as to go about the streets with a great horn on your head and a veil hanging across it.—Why!”—Here she laughed—a laugh the less lady-like that, although it was both low and musical, it was scornful, and a little shaken by doubt.—“You saw him throw his arms round the horrid creature’s neck!—Well, he had just asked me if she was a sinner. I made no doubt she was. Off with the word goes my gentleman to embrace her!”
Here they laughed together.
Dinner over, they went to a missionary meeting, where the one stood and made a speech and the other sat and listened, while Gibbie was having tea with Mistress Croale.
From that day Gibbie’s mind was much exercised as to what he could do for Mistress Croale, and now first he began to wish he had his money. As fast as he learned the finger-alphabet he had taught it to Donal, and, as already they had a good many symbols in use between them, so many indeed that Donal would often instead of speaking make use of signs, they had now the means of intercourse almost as free as if they had had between them two tongues instead of one. It was easy therefore for Gibbie to impart to Donal his anxiety concerning her, and his strong desire to help her, and doing so, he lamented in a gentle way his present inability. This communication Donal judged it wise to impart in his turn to Mistress Croale.
“Ye see, mem,” he said in conclusion, “he’s some w’y or anither gotten ’t intil ’s heid ’at ye’re jist a wheen ower free wi’ the boatle. I kenna. Ye’ll be the best jeedge o’ that yersel’!”
Mistress Croale was silent for a whole minute by the clock. From the moment when Gibbie forsook his dinner and his grand new friends to go with her, the woman’s heart had begun to grow to the boy, and her old memories fed the new crop of affection.
“Weel,” she replied at length, with no little honesty, “—I mayna be sae ill ’s he thinks me, for he had aye his puir father afore ’s e’en; but the bairn’s richt i’ the main, an’ we maun luik till ’t, an’ see what can be dune; for eh! I wad be laith to disappint the bonnie laad!—Maister Grant, gien ever there wis a Christi-an sowl upo’ the face o’ this wickit warl’, that Christi-an sowl’s wee Sir Gibbie!—an’ wha cud hae thoucht it! But it’s the Lord’s doin’, an’ mervellous in oor eyes!—Ow! ye needna luik like that; I ken my Bible no that ill!” she added, catching a glimmer of surprise on Donal’s countenance. “But for that Maister Scletter—dod! I wadna be sair upon ’im—but gien he be fit to caw a nail here an’ a nail there, an fix a sklet or twa, creepin’ upo’ the riggin’ o’ the kirk, I’m weel sure he’s nae wise maister-builder fit to lay ony fundation.—Ay! I tellt ye I kent my beuk no that ill!” she added with some triumph; then resumed: “What the waur wad he or she or Sir Gibbie hae been though they hed inveetit me, as I was there, to sit me doon, an’ tak’ a plet o’ their cockie-leekie wi’ them? There was ane ’at thoucht them ’at was far waur nor me, guid eneuch company for him; an’ maybe I may sit doon wi’ him efter a’, wi’ the help o’ my bonnie wee Sir Gibbie.—I canna help ca’in him wee Sir Gibbie—a’ the toon ca’d ’im that, though haith! he’ll be a big man or he behaud. An’ for ’s teetle, I was aye ane to gie honour whaur honour was due, an’ never ance, weel as I kenned him, did I ca’ his honest father, for gien ever there was an honest man, yon was him!—never did I ca’ him onything but Sir George, naither mair nor less, an’ that though he vroucht the hardest at the cobblin’ a’ the ook, an’ upo’ Setterdays was pleased to hae a guid wash i’ my ain bedroom, an’ pit on a clean sark o’ my deid man’s—rist his sowl!—no ’at I’m a papist, Maister Grant, an’ aye kent better nor think it was ony eese prayin’ for them ’at’s gane; for wha is there to pey ony heed to sic haithenish prayers as that wad be? Na! we maun pray for the livin’ ’at it may dee some guid till, an’ no for them ’at it’s a’ ower wi’—the Lord hae mercy upo’ them!”
My readers may suspect, one for one reason, another for another, that she had already, before Donal came that evening, been holding communion with the idol in the three-cornered temple of her cupboard; and I confess that it was so. But it is equally true that before the next year was gone, she was a shade better—and that not without considerable struggle, and more failures than successes.
Upon one occasion—let those who analyze the workings of the human mind as they would the entrails of an eight-day clock, explain the phenomenon I am about to relate, or decline to believe it, as they choose—she became suddenly aware that she was getting perilously near the brink of actual drunkenness.
“I’ll tak but this ae moo’fu’ mair,” she said to herself; “it’s but a moo’fu’, an’ it’s the last i’ the boatle, an’ it wad be a peety naebody to get the guid o’ ’t.”