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

at her own door, and went home, hoping to find Donal there before him.

He was not there. Hour after hour passed, and he did not appear. At eleven o'clock, Gibbie set out to look for him, but with little hope of finding him. He went all the way back to the quarry, thinking it possible he might be waiting there, expecting him to return without Ginevra. The moon was now low, and her light reached but a little way into it, so that the look of the place was quite altered, and the bottom of it almost dark. But Gibbie had no fear. He went down to the spot, almost feeling his way, where they had stood, got upon the heap, and called and whistled many times. But no answer came. Donal was away, he did not himself know where, wandering wherever the feet in his spirit led him. Gibbie went home again, and sat up all night, keeping the kettle boiling, ready to make tea for him the moment he should come in. But even in the morning Donal did not appear. Gibbie was anxious - for Donal was unhappy.

He might hear of him at the college, he thought, and went at the usual hour. Sure enough, as he entered the quadrangle, there was Donal going in at the door leading to the moral philosophy class-room. For hours, neglecting his own class, he watched about the court, but Donal never showed himself. Gibbie concluded he had watched to avoid him, and had gone home by Crown-street, and himself returned the usual and shorter way, sure almost of now finding him in his room - although probably with the door locked. The room was empty, and Mistress Murkison had not seen him.

Donal's final examination, upon which alone his degree now depended, came on the next day: Gibbie watched at a certain corner, and unseen saw him pass - with a face pale but strong, eyes that seemed not to have slept, and lips that looked the inexorable warders of many sighs. After that he did not see him once till the last day of the session arrived. Then in the public room he saw him go up to receive his degree. Never before had he seen him look grand; and Gibbie knew that there was not any evil in the world, except wrong. But it had been the dreariest week he had ever passed. As they came from the public room, he lay in wait for him once more, but again in vain: he must have gone through the sacristan's garden behind.

When he reached his lodging, he found a note from Donal waiting him, in which he bade him good-bye, said he was gone to his mother, and asked him to pack up his things for him: he would write to Mistress Murkison and tell her what to do with the chest.


CHAPTER LIII.

A NIGHT-WATCH.

A sense of loneliness, such as in all his forsaken times he had never felt, overshadowed Gibbie when he read this letter. He was altogether perplexed by Donal's persistent avoidance of him. He had done nothing to hurt him, and knew himself his friend in his sorrow as well as in his joy. He sat down in the room that had been his, and wrote to him. As often as he raised his eyes - for he had not shut the door - he saw the dusty sunshine on the old furniture. It was a bright day, one of the poursuivants of the yet distant summer, but how dreary everything looked! how miserable and heartless now Donal was gone, and would never regard those things any more! When he had ended his letter, almost for the first time in his life, he sat thinking what he should do next. It was as if he were suddenly becalmed on the high seas; one wind had ceased to blow, and another had not begun. It troubled him a little that he must now return to Mr. Sclater, and once more feel the pressure of a nature not homogeneous with his own. But it would not be for long.

Mr. Sclater had thought of making a movement towards gaining an extension of his tutelage beyond the ordinary legal period, on the ground of unfitness in his ward for the management of his property; but Gibbie's character and scholarship, and the opinion of the world which would follow failure, had deterred him from the attempt. In the month of May, therefore, when, according to the registry of his birth in the parish book, he would be of age, he would also be, as he expected, his own master, so far as other mortals were concerned. As to what he would then do, he had thought much, and had plans, but no one knew anything of them except Donal - who had forsaken him.

He was in no haste to return to Daur-street. He packed Donal's things, with all the books they had bought together, and committed the chest to Mistress Murkison. He then told her he would rather not give up his room just yet, but would like to keep it on for a while, and come and go as he pleased; to which the old woman replied,

"As ye wull, Sir Gibbie. Come an' gang as free as the win'. Mak o' my hoose as gien it war yer ain."

He told her he would sleep there that night, and she got him his dinner as usual; after which, putting a Greek book in his pocket, he went out, thinking to go to the end of the pier and sit there a while. He would gladly have gone to Ginevra, but she had prevented him when she was at school, and had never asked him since she left it. But Gibbie was not ennuy‚: the pleasure of his life came from the very roots of his being, and would therefore run into any channel of his consciousness; neither was he greatly troubled; nothing could "put rancours in the vessel of" his "peace;" he was only very hungry after the real presence of the human; and scarcely had he set his foot on the pavement, when he resolved to go and see Mistress Croale. The sun, still bright, was sinking towards the west, and a cold wind was blowing. He walked to the market, up to the gallery of it, and on to the farther end, greeting one and another of the keepers of the little shops, until he reached that of Mistress Croale. She was overjoyed at sight of him, and proud the neighbours saw the terms they were on. She understood his signs and finger-speech tolerably, and held her part of the conversation in audible utterance. She told him that for the week past Donal had occupied her garret - she did not know why, she said, and hoped nothing had gone wrong between them. Gibbie signed that he could not tell her about it there, but would go and take tea with her in the evening.

"I'm sorry I canna be hame sae ear'," she replied. "I promised to tak my dish o' tay wi' auld Mistress Green - the kail-wife, ye ken, Sir Gibbie." - Gibbie nodded and she resumed: - "But gien ye wad tak a lug o' a Fin'on haddie wi' me at nine o'clock, I wad be prood."

Gibbie nodded again, and left her.

All this time he had not happened to discover that the lady who stood at the next counter, not more than a couple of yards from him, was Miss Kimble - which was the less surprising in that the lady took some trouble to hide the fact. She extended her purchasing when she saw who was shaking hands with the next stall-keeper, but kept her face turned from him, heard all Mrs. Croale said to him, and went away asking herself what possible relations except objectionable ones could exist between such a pair. She knew little or nothing of Gibbie's early history, for she had not been a dweller in the city when Gibbie was known as well as the town-cross to almost every man, woman, and child in it, else perhaps she might, but I doubt it, have modified her conclusion. Her instinct was in the right, she said, with self-gratulation; he was a lad of low character and tastes, just what she had taken him for the first moment she saw him: his friends could not know what he was; she was bound to acquaint them with his conduct; and first of all, in duty to her old pupil, she must let Mr. Galbraith know what sort of friendships this Sir Gilbert, his nephew, cultivated. She went therefore straight to the cottage.

Fergus was there when she rang the bell. Mr. Galbraith looked out, and seeing who it was, retreated - the more hurriedly that he owed her money, and imagined she had come to dun him. But when she found to her disappointment that she could not see him, Miss Kimble did not therefore attempt to restrain a little longer the pent-up waters of her secret. Mr. Duff was a minister, and the intimate friend of the family: she would say what she had seen and heard. Having then first abjured all love of gossip, she told her tale, appealing to the minister whether she had not been right in desiring to let Sir Gilbert's uncle know how he was going on.

"I was not aware that Sir Gilbert was a cousin of yours, Miss Galbraith," said Fergus.

Ginevra's face was rosy red, but it was now dusk, and the fire-light had friendly retainer-shadows about it.

"He is not my cousin," she answered.

"Why, Ginevra! you told me he was your cousin," said Miss Kimble, with keen moral reproach.

"I beg your pardon; I never did," said Ginevra.

"I must see your father instantly," cried Miss Kimble, rising in anger. "He must be informed at once how much he is mistaken in the young gentleman he permits to be on such friendly terms with his daughter."

"My father does not know him," rejoined Ginevra; "and I should prefer they were not brought together just at present."

Her words sounded strange even in her own ears, but she knew no way but the straight one.

"You quite shock me, Ginevra!" said the school-mistress, resuming her seat: "you cannot mean to say you cherish acquaintance with a young man of whom your father knows nothing, and whom you dare not introduce to him?"

To explain would have been to expose her father to blame.

"I have known Sir Gilbert from my childhood," she said.

"Is it possible your duplicity reaches so far?" cried Miss Kimble, assured in her own mind that Ginevra had said he was her cousin.

Fergus thought it was time to interfere.

"I know something of the circumstances that led to the acquaintance of Miss Galbraith with Sir Gilbert," he said, "and I am sure it would only annoy her father to have any allusion made to it by one - excuse me, Miss Kimble - who is comparatively a stranger. I beg you will leave the matter to me."

Fergus regarded Gibbie as a half witted fellow, and had no fear of him. He knew nothing of the commencement of his acquaintance with Ginevra, but