Sir Gibbie by George MacDonald (top 100 novels .txt) 📕

had never till that day set foot - never before having been in any larger abode of men than a scattered village of thatched roofs. But he was not tired, and so long as a man is not tired, he can do well, even in pain. But a city is a dreary place at night, even to one who knows his way in it - much drearier to one lost - in some respects drearier than a heath - except there be old mine-shafts in it.

"It's as gien a' the birds o' a country had creepit intil their bit eggs again, an' the day was left bare o' sang!" said the poet to himself as he walked. Night amongst houses was a new thing to him. Night on the hillsides and in the fields he knew well; but this was like a place of tombs - what else, when all were dead for the night? The night is the world's graveyard, and the cities are its catacombs. He repeated to himself all his own few ballads, then repeated them aloud as he walked, indulging the fancy that he had a long audience on each side of him; but he dropped into silence the moment any night-wanderer appeared. Presently he found himself on the shore of the river, and tried to get to the edge of the water; but it was low tide, the lamps did not throw much light so far, the moon was clouded, he got among logs and mud, and regained the street bemired, and beginning to feel weary. He was saying to himself what ever was he to do all the night long, when round a corner a little way off came a woman. It was no use asking counsel of her, however, or of anyone, he thought, so long as he did not know even the name of the street he wanted - a street which as he walked along it had seemed interminable. The woman drew near. She was rather tall, erect in the back, but bowed in the shoulders, with fierce black eyes, which were all that he could see of her face, for she had a little tartan shawl over her head, which she held together with one hand, while in the other she carried a basket. But those eyes were enough to make him fancy he must have seen her before. They were just passing each other, under a lamp, when she looked hard at him, and stopped.

"Man," she said, "I hae set e'en upo' your face afore!"

"Gien that be the case," answered Donal, "ye set e'en upo' 't again."

"Whaur come ye frae?" she asked.

"That's what I wad fain speir mysel'," he replied. "But, wuman," he went on, "I fancy I hae set e'en upo' your e'en afore - I canna weel say for yer face. Whaur come ye frae?"

"Ken ye a place they ca' - Daurside?" she rejoined.

"Daurside's a gey lang place," answered Donal; "an' this maun be aboot the tae en' o' 't, I'm thinkin'."

"Ye're no far wrang there," she returned; "an' ye hae a gey gleg tongue i' yer heid for a laad frae Daurside."

"I never h'ard 'at tongues war cuttit shorter there nor ither gaits," said Donal;" but I didna mean ye ony offence."

"There's nane ta'en, nor like to be," answered the woman. - "Ken ye a place they ca' Mains o' Glashruach?"

As she spoke she let go her shawl, and it opened from her face like two curtains.

"Lord! it's the witch-wife!" cried Donal, retreating a pace in his astonishment.

The woman burst into a great laugh, a hard, unmusical, but not unmirthful laugh.

"Ay!" she said, "was that hoo the fowk wad hae't o' me?"

"It wasna muckle won'er, efter ye cam wydin' throu' watter yairds deep, an' syne gaed doon the spate on a bran'er."

"Weel, it was the maddest thing!" she returned, with another laugh which stopped abruptly. " - I wadna dee the like again to save my life. But the Michty cairried me throu'. - An' hoo's wee Sir Gibbie? - Come in - I dinna ken yer name - but we're jist at the door o' my bit garret. Come quaiet up the stair, an' tell me a' aboot it."

"Weel, I wadna be sorry to rist a bit, for I hae tint mysel a'thegither, an' I'm some tiret," answered Donal. "I but left the Mains thestreen."

"Come in an' walcome; an whan ye're ristit, an' I'm rid o' my basket, I'll sune pit ye i' the gait o' hame."

Donal was too tired, and too glad to be once more in the company of a human being, to pursue further explanation at present. He followed her, as quietly as he could, up the dark stair. When she struck a light, he saw a little garret-room - better than decently furnished, it seemed to the youth from the hills, though his mother would have thought it far from tidy. The moment the woman got a candle lighted, she went to a cupboard, and brought thence a bottle and a glass. When Donal declined the whisky she poured out, she seemed disappointed, and setting down the glass, let it stand. But when she had seated herself, and begun to relate her adventures in quest of Gibbie, she drew it towards her, and sipped as she talked. Some day she would tell him, she said, the whole story of her voyage on the brander, which would make him laugh; it made her laugh, even now, when it came back to her in her bed at night, though she was far enough from laughing at the time. Then she told him a great deal about Gibbie and his father.

"An' noo," remarked Donal, "he'll be thinkin' 't a' ower again, as he rins aboot the toon this verra meenute, luikin' for me!"

"Dinna ye trible yersel' aboot him," said the woman. "He kens the toon as weel's ony rottan kens the drains o' 't. - But whaur div ye pit up?" she added, "for it's time dacent fowk was gauin' to their beds."

Donal explainned that he knew neither the name of the street nor of the people where he was lodging.

"Tell me this or that - something - onything aboot the hoose or the fowk, or what they're like, an' it may be 'at I'll ken them," she said.

But scarcely had he begun his description of the house when she cried,

"Hoot, man! it's at Lucky Murkison's ye are, i' the Wuddiehill. Come awa', an' I s' tak ye hame in a jiffey."

So saying, she rose, took the candle, showed him down the stair, and followed.

It was past midnight, and the moon was down, but the street-lamps were not yet extinguished, and they walked along without anything to interrupt their conversation - chiefly about Sir Gibbie and Sir George. But perhaps if Donal had known the cause of Gibbie's escape from the city, and that the dread thing had taken place in this woman's house, he would not have walked quite so close to her.

Poor Mistress Croale, however, had been nowise to blame for that, and the shock it gave her had even done something to check the rate of her downhill progress. It let her see, with a lightning flash from the pit, how wide the rent now yawned between her and her former respectability. She continued, as we know, to drink whisky, and was not unfrequently overcome by it; but in her following life as peddler, she measured her madness more; and, much in the open air and walking a great deal, with a basket sometimes heavy, her indulgence did her less physical harm; her temper recovered a little, she regained a portion of her self-command; and at the close of those years of wandering, she was less of a ruin, both mentally and spiritually, than at their commencement.

When she received her hundred pounds for the finding of Sir Gibbie, she rented a little shop in the gallery of the market, where she sold such things as she had carried about the country, adding to her stock, upon the likelihood of demand, without respect to unity either conventional or real, in the character of the wares she associated. The interest and respectability of this new start in life, made a little fresh opposition to the inroads of her besetting sin; so that now she did not consume as much whisky in three days as she did in one when she had her houff on the shore. Some people seem to have been drinking all their lives, of necessity getting more and more into the power of the enemy, but without succumbing at a rapid rate, having even their times of uplifting and betterment. Mistress Croale's complexion was a little clearer; her eyes were less fierce; her expression was more composed; some of the women who like her had shops in the market, had grown a little friendly with her; and, which was of more valuable significance, she had come to be not a little regarded by the poor women of the lower parts behind the market, who were in the way of dealing with her. For the moment a customer of this class, and she had but few of any other, appeared at her shop, or covered stall, rather, she seemed in spirit to go outside the counter and buy with her, giving her the best counsel she had, now advising the cheaper, now the dearer of two articles; while now and then one could tell of having been sent by her to another shop, where, in the particular case, she could do better. A love of affairs, no doubt, bore a part in this peculiarity, but there is all the difference between the two ways of embodying activity - to one's own advantage only, and - to the advantage of one's neighbour as well. For my part, if I knew a woman behaved to her neighbours as Mistress Croale did to hers, were she the worst of drunkards in between, I could not help both respecting and loving her. Alas that such virtue is so portentously scarce! There are so many that are sober for one that is honest! Deep are the depths of social degradation to which the clean, purifying light yet reaches, and lofty are the heights of social honour where yet the light is nothing but darkness. Any thoughtful person who knew Mistress Croale's history, would have feared much for her, and hoped a little: her so-called fate was still undecided. In the mean time she made a living, did not get into debt, spent an inordinate portion of her profits in drink, but had regained and was keeping up a kind and measure of respectability.

Before they reached the Widdiehill, Donal, with the open heart of the poet, was full of friendliness to her, and rejoiced in the mischance that had led him to make her acquaintance.

"Ye ken, of coorse," he happened to say, "'at Gibbie's wi' Maister Sclater?"

"Weel eneuch," she answered. "I hae seen him tee; but he's a gran' gentleman grown, an' I wadna like to be affrontit layin' claim till's acquaintance, - walcome as he ance was to my hoose!"

She had more reason for the doubt and hesitation she thus expressed than Donal knew. But his answer was none the less