Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 14, 2025
All these things Gibbie had bought himself, using the knowledge he had gathered in shopping with Mrs. Sclater, and the advice of her dressmaker, whom he had taken into his confidence, and who had entered heartily into his plan. He made signs to Mistress Croale that everything there was at her service, and left her.
One cold afternoon in the end of October, when Mistress Croale was shutting up her shop in the market, and a tumbler of something hot was haunting her imagination, Gibbie came walking up the long gallery with the light hill-step which he never lost, and startled her with a hand on her shoulder, making signs that she must come with him.
The chintz curtains of her bed were flaming to the ceiling. He darted to it. Mistress Croale was not in it. He jumped upon it, and tore down the curtains and tester, trampling them under his feet upon the blankets. He had almost finished, and, at the bottom of the bed, was reaching up and pulling at the last of the flaming rags, when a groan came to his ears.
The gray of the morning came, chill and cheerless. Mistress Croale stirred, moved, crept up rather than rose to a sitting position, and stretched herself yawning. Gibbie had risen and stood over her. She caught sight of him; absolute terror distorted her sodden face; she stared at him, then stared about her, like one who had suddenly waked in hell. He took her by the arm.
She rose and moved about the room, staring at the things in it as a ghost might stare at the grave-clothes on its abandoned body. There on the table lay her keys; and what was that under them? A letter addressed to her. She opened it, and found five pound-notes, with these words: "I promise to pay to Mrs. Croale five pounds monthly, for nine months to come. Gilbert Galbraith." She wept again.
An' I'm sure I'll be glaid to see ye, sir, ony time ye wad dee me the fawvour to luik in as ye're passin' by. It'll be none to yer shame, sir, for mine's an honest hoose." "I'll do that, Mistress Croale," answered the minister, glad to escape. "But mind," he added, "I don't give up my point for all that; and I hope you will think over what I have been saying to you and that seriously."
Gang ye to the minister's door and speir for 'im! He'll be doon the stair like a shot. But 'deed maybe he's come back, an' 's i' my chaumer the noo! Ye'll come up the stair an' see?" "Na, I wunna dee that," said Mistress Croale, who did not wish to face Mistress Murkison, well known to her in the days of her comparative prosperity.
The black eyes were close to hers, and the glow that was in them gave the lie to the tone of indifference with which Mistress Croale spoke. "Ye hae mair nor ance made mention o' ane conneckit wi' ye, by the name o' Gibbie," she said. "Ay," answered Janet, sending for the serpent to aid the dove; "an' what may be yer wull wi' him?" "Ow, naething," returned Mistress Croale.
A very good "get-up" nevertheless it was, and satisfactory to both concerned. Mistress Croale went out a decent-looking poor body, and entered a not uncomely matron of the housekeeper class, rather agreeable to look upon, who had just stood a nerve-shaking but not unpleasant surprise, and was recovering.
Janet was arrested in her turn: could the fierce, repellent, whisky-craving woman be the mother of her gracious Gibbie? Could she be, and look so lost? But the loss of him had lost her perhaps. Anyhow God was his Father, whoever was the mother of him. "Hoo cam ye to tyne yer bairn, wuman?" she asked. But Mistress Croale was careful also, and had her reasons.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking