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"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."
Instantly he rushed off, his back going like a serpent, cleared the gate at a bound, and scouring madly across a field, vanished from his sight; whereupon Gibbie too set out to continue his journey up Daurside.
This night, however, as the time drew near when they must go, lest the Sabbath should be broken in Mistress Croale's decent house, and Gibbie stood once more on tiptoe, with his head just on the level of the windowsill, he heard his father utter two words: "Up Daurside" came to him through the window, in the voice he loved, plain and distinct.
He rose and wandered up the wide road along the river bank, farther and farther from it his only guide the words of his father, "Up Daurside;" his sole comfort the feeling of having once more to do with his father so long departed, some relation still with the paradise of his old world.
The same instant, back to the ear of his mind came his father's two words, as he had heard them through the window "Up Daurside." "Up Daurside!" Here he was upon Daurside a little way up too: he would go farther up. He rose and went on, while the great river kept flowing the other way, dark and terrible, down to the very door inside which lay Sambo with the huge gape in his big throat.
She could not find her way down the mountain; and if she could, where was she to go, with all Daurside under water? She would soon have eaten up all the food in the cottage, and the storm might go on for ever, who could tell?
"Weel that," answered Donal. "He's been wi' me an' the nowt ilka day for weeks till the day." With that he hurried into the story of his acquaintance with Gibbie; and the fable of the brownie would soon have disappeared from Daurside, had it not been that Janet desired them to say nothing about the boy, but let him be forgotten by his enemies, till he grew able to take care of himself.
He drank 'maist a' thing there was, Gibbie lan's an' lordship, till there was hardly an accre left upo' haill Daurside to come to my father 'maist naething but a wheen sma' hooses.
Now and then he had from her a sweet sad smile, but no sign that he might go and see her. Whether he was to see Donal when he reached Daurside, he could not tell; he had heard nothing of him since he went; his mother never wrote letters. "Na, na; I canna," she would say. "It wad tak a' the pith oot o' me to vreet letters. A' 'at I hae to say I sen' the up-road; it's sure to win hame ear' or late."
He then returned and resumed his book, while Gibbie again sat down near by, and watched both Donal and his charge the keeper of both herd and cattle. Surely Gibbie had at last found his vocation on Daurside, with both man and beast for his special care! By and by Donal raised his head once more, but this time it was to regard Gibbie and not the nowt.
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