“Nae fear—I’ll putt it i’ my note-buik,” said David, drawing a substantial volume from his breast pocket and entering the address—‘Mrs Morley, Cherub Court’—therein.
Having shaken hands all round he descended the stair with a firm tread and compressed lips until he came out on the main thoroughfare, when he muttered to himself sternly:
“Waux dolls, indeed! there’s nane o’ thae dolls’ll git the better o’ me. H’m! a bonny wee face, nae doot but what div I care for bonny faces if the hairt’s no’ richt?”
“But suppose that the heart is right?”
Who could have whispered that question? David Laidlaw could not stop to inquire, but began to hum—
“Oh, this is no my ain lassie,
Kind though the lassie be,—”
In a subdued tone, as he sauntered along the crowded street, which by that time was blazing with gas-light in the shop-windows and oil-lamps on the hucksters’ barrows.
The song, however, died on his lips, and he moved slowly along, stopping now and then to observe the busy and to him novel scene, till he reached a comparatively quiet turning, which was dimly lighted by only one lamp. Here he felt a slight twitch at the bag which contained his little all. Like lightning he turned and seized by the wrist a man who had already opened the bag and laid hold of some of its contents. Grasping the poor wretch by the neck with his other hand he held him in a grip of iron.