“They tell me the mountain is mine,” Gibbie wrote: “your husband shall be laird of Glashgar if he likes.”
“Na, na,” said Janet, with a loving look. “He’s ower auld for that. He micht na dee sae easy for ’t.—Eh! please the Lord, I wad fain gang wi’ him.—An’ what better wad Robert be to be laird? We pey nae rent as ’tis, an’ he has as mony sheep to lo’e as he can weel ken ane frae the ither, noo ’at he’s growin’ auld. I ken naething ’at he lacks, but Gibbie to gang wi’ ’im aboot the hill. A neebour’s laddie comes an’ gangs, to help him, but, eh, says Robert, he’s no Gibbie!—But gien Glashruach be yer ain, my bonnie man, ye maun gang doon there this verra nicht, and gie a luik to the burn; for the last time I was there, I thoucht it was creepin’ in aneth the bank some fearsome like for what’s left o’ the auld hoose, an’ the suner it’s luikit efter maybe the better. Eh, Sir Gibbie, but ye sud merry the bonnie leddy, an’ tak her back till her ain hoose.”
Gibbie gave a great sigh to think of the girl that loved the hill and the heather and the burns, shut up in the city, and every Sunday going to the great church—with which in Gibbie’s mind was associated no sound of glad tidings. To him Glashgar was full of God; the North church or Mr. Sclater’s church—well, he had tried hard, but had not succeeded in discovering temple-signs about either.
The next day he sent to the city for an architect; and within a week masons and quarrymen were at work, some on the hill blasting blue boulders and red granite, others roughly shaping the stones, and others laying the foundation of a huge facing and buttressing wall, which was to slope up from the bed of the Glashburn fifty feet to the foot of the castle, there to culminate in a narrow terrace with a parapet. Others again were clearing away what of the ruins stuck to the old house, in order to leave it, as much as might be, in its original form. There was no space left for rebuilding, neither was there any between the two burns for adding afresh. The channel of the second remained dry, the landslip continuing to choke it, and the stream to fall into the Glashburn. But Gibbie would not consent that the burn Ginevra had loved should sing no more as she had heard it sing. Her chamber was gone, and could not be restored, but another chamber should be built for her, beneath whose window it should again run: when she was married to Fergus, and her father could not touch it, the place should be hers. More masons were gathered, and foundations blasted in the steep rock that formed the other bank of the burn. The main point in the building was to be a room for Ginevra. He planned it himself—with a windowed turret projecting from the wall, making a recess in the room, and overhanging the stream. The turret he carried a story higher than the wall, and in the wall placed a stair leading to its top, whence, over the roof of the ancient part of the house, might be seen the great Glashgar, and its streams coming down from heaven, and singing as they came. Then from the middle of the first stair in the old house, the wall, a yard and a half thick, having been cut through, a solid stone bridge, with a pointed arch, was to lead across the burn to a like landing in the new house—a close passage, with an oriel window on each side, looking up and down the stream, and a steep roof. And while these works were going on below, two masons, high on the mountain, were adding to the cottage a warm bedroom for Janet and Robert.
The architect was an honest man, and kept Gibbie’s secret, so that, although he was constantly about the place, nothing disturbed the general belief that Glashruach had been bought, and was being made habitable, by a certain magnate of the county adjoining.
CHAPTER LV.
TEN AULD HOOSE O’ GALBRAITH.
One cold afternoon in the end of October, when Mistress Croale was shutting up her shop in the market, and a tumbler of something hot was haunting her imagination, Gibbie came walking up the long gallery with the light hill-step which he never lost, and startled her with a hand on her shoulder, making signs that she must come with him. She made haste to lock her door, and they walked side by side to the Widdiehill. As they crossed the end of it she cast a look down Jink Lane, and thought of her altered condition with a sigh. Then the memory of the awful time amongst the sailors, in which poor Sambo’s frightful death was ever prominent, came back like a fog from hell. But so far gone were those times now, that, seeing their events more as they really were, she looked upon them with incredulous horror, as things in which she could hardly have had any part or lot. Then returned her wanderings and homeless miseries, when often a haystack or a heap of straw in a shed was her only joy—whisky always excepted. Last of all came the dread perils, the hairbreadth escapes of her too adventurous voyage on the brander;—and after all these things, here she was, walking in peace by the side of wee Sir Gibbie, a friend as strong now as he had always been true! She asked herself, or some power within asked her, whence came the troubles that had haunted her life. Why had she been marked out for such misfortunes? Her conscience answered—from her persistence in living by the sale of drink after she had begun to feel it was wrong. Thence it was that she had learned to drink, and that she was even now liable, if not to be found drunk in the streets, yet to go to bed drunk as any of her former customers. The cold crept into her bones; the air seemed full of blue points and clear edges of cold, that stung and cut her. She was a wretched, a low creature! What would her late aunt think to see her now? What if this cold in her bones were the cold of coming death? To lie for ages in her coffin, with her mouth full of earth, longing for whisky! A verse from the end of the New Testament with “nor drunkards” in it, came to her mind. She had always had faith, she said to herself; but let them preach what they liked about salvation by faith, she knew there was nothing but hell for her if she were to die that night. There was Mistress Murkison looking out of her shop-door! She was respected as much as ever! Would Mistress Murkison be saved if she died that night? At least nobody would want her damned; whereas not a few, and Mr. Sclater in particular, would think it no fair play if Mistress Croale were not damned!
They turned into the close of the Auld Hoose o’ Galbraith.
“Wee Gibbie’s plottin’ to lead me to repentance!” she said to herself. “He’s gaein’ to shaw me whaur his father dee’d, an’ whaur they leevit in sic meesery—a’ throu’ the drink I gae ’im, an’ the respectable hoose I keepit to ’tice him till ’t! He wad hae me persuaudit to lea’ aff the drink! Weel, I’m a heap better nor ance I was, an’ gie ’t up I wull a’thegither—afore it comes to the last wi’ me.”
By this time Gibbie was leading her up the dark stair. At the top, on a wide hall-like landing, he opened a door. She drew back with shy amaze. Her first thought was—“That prood madam, the minister’s wife, ’ill be there!” Was affront lying in wait for her again? She looked round angrily at her conductor. But his smile reassured her, and she stepped in.