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On one side of her lay a bottle, on the other a chamber-candlestick upset, with the candle guttered into a mass. With the help of the water-jugs, and the bath which stood ready in his room, he succeeded at last in putting out the fire, and then turned his attention to Mistress Croale.
But he was always too much ashamed to begin to drink before the child: he hated to uncork the bottle before him. What followed was in regular Sunday routine. "Gang ower to Mistress Croale's, Gibbie," he said, "wi' my compliments." Away ran Gibbie, nothing loath, and at his knock was admitted. Mistress Croale sat in the parlour, taking her tea, and expecting him. She was always kind to the child.
Encouraged by the condescension of the remark, but disinclined to follow the path of reflection it indicated, Mistress Croale ventured a little farther upon her own. "Ye see, sir," she said, "as lang's there's whusky, it wull tak the throt-ro'd. It's the naitral w'y o' 't, ye see, to rin doon, an' it's no mainner o' use gangin' again natur.
But Gibbie was not ennuye: 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.
As soon as Mistress Croale heard of their return, she went immediately to Lady Galbraith, one morning while Sir Gibbie was at college, literally knelt at her feet, and with tears told her the whole tale, beseeching her intercession with Sir Gibbie. "I want naething," she insisted, "but his fawvour, an' the licht o' his bonnie coontenance."
At sight of it, Mistress Croale's eyes shot flame. Jean poured out a glassful, took a sip, and offered it to Janet. Janet declining it, Jean, invaded possibly by some pity of her miserable aspect, offered it to Mistress Croale.
But Mistress Croale, haunted by old memories, most of them far from pleasant, grew more and more desirous of looking upon the object of perhaps the least disagreeable amongst them: she summoned resolution at last, went to the market a little better dressed than usual, and when business there was over, and she had shut up her little box of a shop, walked to Daur-street to the minister's house.
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.
I tell you of it, not from the least hope that you will anticipate me by closing, but merely that no one may say I did anything in an underhand fashion." The calmness with which he uttered the threat alarmed Mistress Croale. He might rouse unmerited suspicion, and cause her much trouble by vexatious complaint, even to the peril of her license. She must take heed, and not irritate her enemy.
Would Mistress Murkison be saved if she died that night? At least nobody would want her damned; whereas not a few, and Mr. Sclater in particular, would think it no fair play if Mistress Croale were not damned! They turned into the close of the Auld Hoose o' Galbraith. "Wee Gibbie's plottin' to lead me to repentance!" she said to herself.
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