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There was another not very pleasant sensation too, of which she herself had not taken account, although it was present and made itself felt keenly enough. It was her strange sense of desolation and grief at the parting from her father. Baubie herself would have been greatly puzzled had any person designated her feelings by these names.
Now, don't let me hear of your singing in the streets or begging again. You will get into trouble if you do." She was descending the stairs as she spoke, and she turned round when she had reached the entry: "You know the police will take you, Baubie." "Yes, mem," answered Baubie, duly impressed. "Well, now, I am going home. Stay: are you hungry?"
It seemed to take some time for his brain to realize all the meaning of her pregnant speech. "Ay," he said after a while, and with an effort, "I maun tak' ye to Glasgae, to yer aunt. Ye'll be pit in schuil if yer caught." "I'll no bide," observed Baubie, finishing off her onion with a grimace.
It was hardly fair that she should be sent to a reformatory among criminal children. She had committed no crime, and there was that empty bed at the home for little girls. She determined to attend the sheriff-court on Monday morning and ask to be given the custody of Baubie. When Monday morning came, ten o'clock saw Miss Mackenzie established in a seat immediately below the sheriff's high bench.
How earnest and matter of fact she was in delivering her extraordinary errand! thought Miss Mackenzie to herself, meeting the eager gaze of Baubie Wishart's eyes, looking out from beneath her tangle of hair like those of a Skye terrier. "I will speak to your father myself, Baubie tell him so to-morrow, perhaps: tell him I mean to settle about you myself. Now go."
Wishart as her offences were detailed; Wishart blinked in a helpless, pathetic way; Baubie, who seemed to consider herself as associated with him alone in the charge, assumed an air of indifference and sucked her thumb, meantime watching Miss Mackenzie furtively. She felt puzzled to account for her presence there, but it never entered her head to connect that fact with herself in any way.
To become the owner of Baubie Wishart, even at so low a price, seemed to her rather a heathenish proceeding, with a flavor of illegality about it to boot. There was a vacancy at the home for little girls which might be made available for the little wretch without the necessity of any preliminary of this kind; and it did not occur to her that it was a matter of any moment whether Mr.
Duncan," Miss Mackenzie was saying to a comfortably-dressed elderly woman, "here's your new girl, Baubie Wishart." "Eh, ye've been successful then, Miss Mackenzie?" "Oh dear, yes: the sheriff made no objection. And now, Mrs. Duncan, I hope she will be a good girl and give you no trouble. Come here, Baubie, and promise me to do everything you are told and obey Mrs. Duncan in everything."
She finished it off deliberately, and turned her bright eyes and flushed face toward the speaker. "Who gave you leave, Baubie Wishart," went on the angry matron, "to make yon noise? You ought to think shame of such conduct, singing your good-for-nothing street-songs like a tinkler. One would think ye would feel glad never to hear of such things again. Let me have no more of this, do ye hear?
The gardens below lay partly veiled in a clear transparent mist, faintly blue, that hovered above the trees and crept up the banks, and over which the grand outlines of the Rock towered as it lifted its head majestically into the gold halo that lay beyond. Not a sound or stir, even the sparrows were barely awake, as Baubie darted along.
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