Sir Gibbie Part 34

"I thought you had gone to see Donal," said Mrs. Sclater, in the tone of one deceived, and took no notice of the girl.

Gibbie gave her to understand that Donal would arrive presently, and they were then going to the point of the pier, that Donal might learn what the sea was like in a nor'-easter.

"But why did you make your appointment here?" asked the lady.

"Because Mysie and I are old friends," answered the boy on his fingers.

Then first Mrs. Sclater turned to the girl: having got over her first indignation, she spoke gently and with a frankness natural to her.

"Sir Gilbert tells me you are old friends," she said.

Thereupon Mysie told her the story of the ear-ring, which had introduced their present conversation, and added several other little recollections, in one of which she was drawn into a description, half pathetic, half humorous, of the forlorn appearance of wee Gibbie, as he ran about in his truncated trousers. Mrs.

Slater was more annoyed, however, than interested, for, in view of the young baronet's future, she would have had all such things forgotten; but Gibbie was full of delight in the vivid recollections thus brought him of some of the less painful portions of his past, and appreciated every graphic word that fell from the girl's pretty lips.

Mrs. Sclater took good care not to leave until Donal came. Then the boys, having asked her if she would not go with them, which invitation she declined with smiling thanks, took their departure and went to pay their visit to the German Ocean, leaving her with Mysie--which they certainly would not have done, could they have foreseen how the well-meaning lady--nine-tenths of the mischiefs in the world are well-meant--would hurt the feelings of the gentle-conditioned girl. For a long time after, as often as Gibbie entered the shop, Mysie left it and her mother came--a result altogether as Mrs. Sclater would have had it. But hardly anybody was ever in less danger of falling in love than Gibbie; and the thing would not have been worth recording, but for the new direction it caused in Mrs. Sclater's thoughts: measures, she judged, must be taken.

Gladly as she would have centred Gibbie's boyish affections in herself, she was too conscientious and experienced not to regard the danger of any special effort in that direction, and began therefore to cast about in her mind what could be done to protect him from one at least of the natural consequences of his early familiarity with things unseemly--exposure, namely, to the risk of forming low alliances--the more imminent that it was much too late to attempt any restriction of his liberty, so as to keep him from roaming the city at his pleasure. Recalling what her husband had told her of the odd meeting between the boy and a young lady at Miss Kimble's school--some relation, she thought he had said--also the desire to see her again which Gibbie, on more than one occasion, had shown, she thought whether she could turn the acquaintance to account. She did not much like Miss Kimble, chiefly because of her affectations--which, by the way, were caricatures of her own; but she knew her very well, and there was no reason why she should not ask her to come and spend the evening, and bring two or three of the elder girls with her: a little familiarity with the looks, manners, and dress of refined girls of his own age, would be the best antidote to his taste for low society, from that of bakers'

daughters downwards.

It was Mrs. Sclater's own doing that Gibbie had not again spoken to Ginevra. Nowise abashed at the thought of the grenadier or her array of doves, he would have gone, the very next day after meeting them in the street, to call upon her: it was some good, he thought, of being a rich instead of a poor boy, that, having lost thereby those whom he loved best, he had come where he could at least see Miss Galbraith; but Mrs. Sclater had pretended not to understand where he wanted to go, and used other artifices besides--well-meant, of course--to keep him to herself until she should better understand him. After that he had seen Ginevra more than once at church, but had had no chance of speaking to her. For, in the sudden dispersion of its agglomerate particles, a Scotch congregation is--or was in Gibbie's time--very like the well-known vitreous drop called a Prince Rupert's tear, in which the mutually repellent particles are held together by a strongly contracted h.o.m.ogeneous layer--to separate with explosion the instant the tough skin is broken and vibration introduced; and as Mrs. Sclater generally sat in her dignity to the last, and Gibbie sat with her, only once was he out in time to catch a glimpse of the ultimate rank of the retreating girls. He was just starting to pursue them, when Mrs. Sclater, perceiving his intention, detained him by requesting the support of his arm--a way she had, pretending to be weary, or to have given her ankle a twist, when she wanted to keep him by her side. Another time he had followed them close enough to see which turn they took out of Daur-street; but that was all he had learned, and when the severity of the winter arrived, and the snow lay deep, sometimes for weeks together, the chances of meeting them were few. The first time the boys went out together, that when they failed to find Mistress Croale's garret, they made an excursion in search of the girls' school, but had been equally unsuccessful in that; and although they never after went for a walk without contriving to pa.s.s through some part of the region in which they thought it must lie, they had never yet even discovered a house upon which they could agree as presenting probabilities.

Mr. Galbraith did not take Miss Kimble into his confidence with respect to his reasons for so hurriedly placing his daughter under her care: he was far too reticent, too proud, and too much hurt for that. Hence, when Mrs. Sclater's invitation arrived, the schoolmistress was aware of no reason why Miss Galbraith should not be one of the girls to go with her, especially as there was her cousin, Sir Gilbert, whom she herself would like to meet again, in the hope of removing the bad impression which, in the discharge of her duty, she feared she must have made upon him.

One day, then, at luncheon, Mrs. Sclater told Gibbie that some ladies were coming to tea, and they were going to have supper instead of dinner. He must put on his best clothes, she said. He did as she desired, was duly inspected, approved on the whole, and finished off by a few deft fingers at his necktie, and a gentle push or two from the loveliest of hands against his hair-thatch, and was seated in the drawing-room with Mrs. Sclater when the ladies arrived. Ginevra and he shook hands, she with the sweetest of rose-flushes, he with the radiance of delighted surprise. But, a moment after, when Mrs. Sclater and her guests had seated themselves, Gibbie, their only gentleman, for Mr. Sclater had not yet made his appearance, had vanished from the room. Tea was not brought until some time after, when Mr. Sclater came home, and then Mrs. Sclater sent Jane to find Sir Gilbert; but she returned to say he was not in the house. The lady's heart sank, her countenance fell, and all was gloom: her project had miscarried! he was gone!

who could tell whither?--perhaps to the baker's daughter, or to the horrid woman Croale!

The case was however very much otherwise. The moment Gibbie ended his greetings, he had darted off to tell Donal: it was not his custom to enjoy alone anything sharable.

The news that Ginevra was at that moment seated in Mrs. Sclater's house, at that moment, as his eagerness had misunderstood Gibbie's, expecting his arrival, raised such a commotion in Donal's atmosphere, that for a time it was but a huddle of small whirlwinds.

His heart was beating like the trample of a trotting horse. He never thought of inquiring whether Gibbie had been commissioned by Mrs. Sclater to invite him, or reflected that his studies were not half over for the night. An instant before the arrival of the blessed fact, he had been absorbed in a rather abstruse metaphysico-mathematical question; now not the metaphysics of the universe would have appeared to him worth a moment's meditation. He went pacing up and down the room, and seemed lost to everything.

Gibbie shook him at length, and told him, by two signs, that he must put on his Sunday clothes. Then first shyness, like the shroud of northern myth that lies in wait in a man's path, leaped up, and wrapped itself around him. It was very well to receive ladies in a meadow, quite another thing to walk into their company in a grand room, such as, before entering Mrs. Sclater's, he had never beheld even in Fairyland or the Arabian Nights. He knew the ways of the one, and not the ways of the other. Chairs ornate were doubtless poor things to daisied banks, yet the other day he had hardly brought himself to sit on one of Mrs. Sclater's! It was a moment of awful seeming. But what would he not face to see once more the lovely lady-girl! He bethought himself that he was no longer a cowherd but a student, and that such feelings were unworthy of one who would walk level with his fellows. He rushed to the labours of his toilette, performed severe ablutions, endued his best shirt--coa.r.s.e, but sweet from the fresh breezes of Glashgar, a pair of trousers of buff-coloured fustian stamped over with a black pattern, an olive-green waistcoat, a blue tailcoat with lappets behind, and a pair of well-polished shoes, the soles of which in honour of Sunday were studded with small instead of large k.n.o.bs of iron, set a tall beaver hat, which no brushing would make smooth, on the back of his head, stuffed a silk hankerchief, crimson and yellow, in his pocket, and declared himself ready.

Now Gibbie, although he would not have looked so well in his woolly coat in Mrs. Sclater's drawing-room as on the rocks of Glashgar, would have looked better in almost any other than the evening dress, now, alas! nearly European. Mr. Sclater, on the other hand, would have looked worse in any other because being less commonplace, it would have been less like himself; and so long as the commonplace conventional so greatly outnumber the simply individual, it is perhaps well the present fashion should hold. But Donal could hardly have put on any clothes that would have made him look worse, either in respect of himself or of the surroundings of social life, than those he now wore. Neither of the boys, however, had begun to think about dress in relation either to custom or to fitness, and it was with complete satisfaction that Gibbie carried off Donal to present to the guest of his guardians.

Donal's preparations had taken a long time, and before they reached the house, tea was over and gone. They had had some music; and Mrs.

Sclater was now talking kindly to two of the school-girls, who, seated erect on the sofa, were looking upon her elegance with awe and envy. Ginevra, was looking at the pictures of an annual. Mr.

Sclater was making Miss Kimble agreeable to herself. He had a certain gift of talk--depending in a great measure on the a.s.surance of being listened to, an a.s.surance which is, alas! nowise the less hurtful to many a clergyman out of the pulpit, that he may be equally aware no one heeds him in it.

CHAPTER XLVI.

THE GIRLS.

The door was opened. Donal spent fully a minute rubbing his shoes on the mat, as diligently as if he had just come out of the cattle-yard, and then Gibbie led him in triumph up the stair to the drawing-room. Donal entered in that loose-jointed way which comes of the brains being as yet all in the head, and stood, resisting Gibbie's pull on his arm, his keen hazel eyes looking gently round upon the company, until he caught sight of the face he sought, when, with the stride of a sower of corn, he walked across the room to Ginevra. Mrs. Sclater rose; Mr. Sclater threw himself back and stared; the latter astounded at the presumption of the youths, the former uneasy at the possible results of their ignorance. To the astonishment of the company, Ginevra rose, respect and modesty in every feature, as the youth, clownish rather than awkward, approached her, and almost timidly held out her hand to him. He took it in his h.o.r.n.y palm, shook it hither and thither sideways, like a leaf in a doubtful air, then held it like a precious thing he was at once afraid of crushing by too tight a grasp, and of dropping from too loose a hold, until Ginevra took charge of it herself again. Gibbie danced about behind him, all but standing on one leg, but, for Mrs. Sclater's sake, restraining himself. Ginevra sat down, and Donal, feeling very large and clumsy, and wanting to "be naught a while," looked about him for a chair, and then first espying Mrs. Sclater, went up to her with the same rolling, clamping stride, but without embarra.s.sment, and said, holding out his hand,

"Hoo are ye the nicht, mem? I sawna yer bonnie face whan I cam in.

A gran' hoose, like this o' yours--an' I'm sure, mem, it cudna be ower gran' to fit yersel', but it's jist some perplexin' to plain fowk like me, 'at's been used to mair room, an' less intill't."

Donal was thinking of the meadow on the Lorrie bank.

"I was sure of it!" remarked Mrs. Sclater to herself. "One of nature's gentlemen! He would soon be taught."

She was right; but he was more than a gentleman, and could have taught her what she could have taught n.o.body in turn.

"You will soon get accustomed to our town ways, Mr. Grant. But many of the things we gather about us are far more trouble than use," she replied, in her sweetest tones, and with a gentle pressure of the hand, which went a long way to set him at his ease. "I am glad to see you have friends here," she added.

"Only ane, mem. Gibbie an' me--"

"Excuse me, Mr. Grant, but would you oblige me--of course with me it is of no consequence, but just for habit's sake, would you oblige me by calling Gilbert by his own name--Sir Gilbert, please. I wish him to get used to it."

"Yer wull be't, mem.--Weel, as I was sayin', Sir Gibbie--Sir Gilbert, that is, mem--an mysel', we hae kenned Miss Galbraith this lang time, bein' o' the laird's ain fowk, as I may say."

"Will you take a seat beside her, then," said Mrs. Sclater, and rising, herself placed a chair for him near Ginevra, wondering how any Scotch laird, the father of such a little lady as she, could have allowed her such an acquaintance.

To most of the company he must have looked very queer. Gibbie, indeed, was the only one who saw the real Donal. Miss Kimble and her pupils stared at the distorted reflexion of him in the spoon-bowl of their own elongated narrowness; Mrs. Sclater saw the possible gentleman through the loop-hole of a compliment he had paid her; and Mr. Sclater beheld only the minimum which the reversed telescope of his own enlarged importance, he having himself come of sufficiently humble origin, made of him; while Ginevra looked up to him more as one who marvelled at the grandly unintelligible, than one who understood the relations and proportions of what she beheld.

Nor was it possible she could help feeling that he was a more harmonious object to the eye both of body and mind when dressed in his corduroys and blue bonnet, walking the green fields, with cattle about him, his club under his arm, and a book in his hand. So seen, his natural dignity was evident; now he looked undeniably odd. A poet needs a fine house rather than a fine dress to set him off, and Mrs. Sclater's drawing-room was neither large nor beautiful enough to frame this one, especially with his Sunday clothes to get the better of. To the school ladies, mistress and pupils, he was simply a clodhopper, and from their report became a treasure of poverty-stricken amus.e.m.e.nt to the school. Often did Ginevra's cheek burn with indignation at the small insolences of her fellow-pupils.

At first she attempted to make them understand something of what Donal really was, but finding them unworthy of the confidence, was driven to betake herself to such a silence as put a stop to their offensive remarks in her presence.

"I thank ye, mem," said Donal, as he took the chair; "ye're verra condescendin'." Then turning to Ginevra, and trying to cross one knee over the other, but failing from the tightness of certain garments, which, like David with Saul's not similarly faulty armour, he had not hitherto proved, "Weel, mem," he said, "ye haena forgotten Hornie, I houp."

The other girls must be pardoned for t.i.ttering, offensive as is the habit so common to their cla.s.s, for the only being they knew by that name was one to whom the merest reference sets pit and gallery in a roar. Miss Kimble was shocked--disgusted, she said afterwards; and until she learned that the clown was there uninvited, cherished a grudge against Mrs. Sclater.

Ginevra smiled him a satisfactory negative.

"I never read the ballant aboot the worm lingelt roun' the tree,"

said Donal, making rather a long link in the chain of a.s.sociation, "ohn thoucht upo' that day, mem, whan first ye cam doon the brae wi'

my sister Nicie, an' I cam ower the burn till ye, an' ye garred me lauch aboot weetin' o' my feet! Eh, mem! wi' you afore me there, I see the blew lift again, an' the gerse jist lowin' (flaming) green, an' the nowt at their busiest, the win' asleep, an' the burn sayin', 'Ye need nane o' ye speyk: I'm here, an' it's my business.' Eh, mem! whan I think upo' 't a', it seems to me 'at the human hert closed i' the mids o' sic a coffer o' cunnin' workmanship, maun be a terrible precious-like thing."

Gibbie, behind Donal's chair, seemed pulsing light at every pore, but the rest of the company, understanding his words perfectly, yet not comprehending a single sentence he uttered, began to wonder whether he was out of his mind, and were perplexed to see Ginevra listening to him with such respect. They saw a human offence where she knew a poet. A word is a word, but its interpretations are many, and the understanding of a man's words depends both on what the hearer is, and on what is his idea of the speaker. As to the pure all things are pure, because only purity can enter, so to the vulgar all things are vulgar, because only the vulgar can enter.

Wherein then is the commonplace man to be blamed, for as he is, so must he think? In this, that he consents to be commonplace, willing to live after his own idea of himself, and not after G.o.d's idea of him--the real idea, which, every now and then stirring in him, makes him uneasy with silent rebuke.

Ginevra said little in reply. She had not much to say. In her world the streams were still, not vocal. But Donal meant to hold a little communication with her which none of them, except indeed Gibbie--he did not mind Gibbie--should understand.

"I hed sic a queer dream the ither nicht, mem," he said, "an' I'll jist tell ye't.--I thoucht I was doon in an awfu' kin' o' a weet bog, wi' dry graivelly-like hills a' aboot it, an' naething upo'

them but a wheen short hunger-like gerse. An' oot o' the mids o'

the bog there grew jist ae tree--a saugh, I think it was, but unco auld--'maist past kennin' wi' age;--an' roun' the rouch gnerlet trunk o' 't was twist.i.t three faulds o' the oogliest, ill-fauredest cratur o' a serpent 'at ever was seen. It was jist laithly to luik upo'. I cud describe it till ye, mem, but it wad only gar ye runkle yer bonny broo, an' luik as I wadna hae ye luik, mem, 'cause ye wadna luik freely sae bonny as ye div noo whan ye luik jist yersel'.

But ae queer thing was, 'at atween hit an' the tree it grippit a buik, an' I kent it for the buik o' ballants. An' I gaed nearer, luikin' an' luikin', an' some fricht.i.t. But I wadna stan' for that, for that wad be to be caitiff vile, an' no true man: I gaed nearer an' nearer, till I had gotten within a yaird o' the tree, whan a' at ance, wi' a swing an' a swirl, I was three-fauld aboot the tree, an'

the laithly worm was me mesel'; an' I was the laithly worm. The verra hert gaed frae me for h.o.a.rible dreid, an' scunner at mysel'!

Sae there I was! But I wasna lang there i' my meesery, afore I saw, oot o' my ain serpent e'en, maist blin't wi' greitin', ower the tap o' the brae afore me, 'atween me an' the lift, as gien it reacht up to the verra stars, for it wasna day but nicht by this time aboot me, as weel it micht be,--I saw the bonny sicht come up o' a knicht in airmour, helmet an' shield an' iron sheen an' a'; but somehoo I kent by the gang an' the stan' an' the sway o' the bonny boady o'

the knicht, 'at it was nae man, but a wuman.--Ye see, mem, sin I cam frae Daurside, I hae been able to get a grip o' buiks 'at I cudna get up there; an' I hed been readin' Spenser's Fairy Queen the nicht afore, a' yon aboot the lady 'at pat on the airmour o' a man, an'

foucht like a guid ane for the richt an' the trowth--an' that hed putten 't i' my heid maybe; only whan I saw her, I kent her, an' her name wasna Britomart. She had a twist.i.t brainch o' blew berries aboot her helmet, an' they ca'd her Juniper: wasna that queer, noo?

An' she cam doon the hill wi' bonny big strides, no ower big for a stately wuman, but eh, sae different frae the nipperty mincin'

stippety-stap o' the leddies ye see upo' the streets here! An' sae she cam doon the brae. An' I soucht sair to cry oot--first o' a' to tell her gien she didna luik till her feet, she wad he lairt i' the bog, an' syne to beg o' her for mercy's sake to draw her swoord, an'

caw the oogly heid aff o' me, an' lat me dee. Noo I maun confess 'at the ballant o' Kemp Owen was rinnin' i' the worm-heid o' me, an'

I cudna help thinkin' what, notwithstan'in' the cheenge o' han's i'

the story, lay still to the pairt o' the knicht; but hoo was ony man, no to say a mere ugsome serpent, to mint at sic a thing till a leddy, whether she was in steel beets an' spurs or in lang train an'