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She turned on him, and opening her mouth wide, screamed at him like a wild animal, with all the hatred of mingled love and fear; then threw herself on the boy, and covered his body with her own. Angus, stooping to remove her, saw Gibbie's face, and became uncomfortable. "He's deid! he's deid! Ye've killt him, Angus! Ye're an ill man!" she cried fiercely. "I hate ye. I'll tell on ye.
She lay back in her chair, chin up and eyebrows lifted, and Mary Cary, getting on her feet, laughed, then leaned over and kissed her. "To-morrow night I am going to the McDougals'. Susie McDougal's beau, Mr. John Armitage, the soap-box politician, is to be there. You don't mind, do you?" Miss Gibbie's mouth, eyes, and nose all screwed together, and the turkey-wing fan was held at arm's-length.
Sclater consented to Gibbie's lodging with Donal, but would have insisted on their taking rooms in some part of the town more suitable to the young baronet's position, he said; but as there was another room to be had at Mistress Murkison's, Gibbie insisted that one who had shown them so much kindness must not be forsaken; and by this time he seldom found difficulty in having his way with his guardian.
Amongst many others concerning the property, its tenures, and boundaries, appeared some papers which, associated and compared, threw considerable doubt on the way in which portions of it had changed hands, and passed from those of Gibbie's ancestors into those of Ginevra's who were lawyers as well as Galbraiths; and the laird was keen of scent as any nose-hound after dishonesty in other people.
Gibbie's advances he met instantly, and in a few days a strong mutual affection had sprung up between them. To Gibbie Sambo speedily became absolutely loving and tender, and Gibbie made him full return of devotion. The negro was a man of immense muscular power, like not a few of his race, and, like most of them, not easily provoked, inheriting not a little of their hard-learned long-suffering.
The mountain was Gibbie's very home; yet to see him far up on it, in the red glow of the setting sun, with his dog, as obedient as himself, hanging upon his every signal, one could have fancied him a shepherd boy come down from the plains of heaven to look after a lost lamb.
All were sorry to part with him, but no one desired to stand in the way of his good fortune by claiming his service to the end of his half-year. It was about a fortnight after Gibbie's departure when he found himself free.
They say real smart people don't any more except preachers who have to and women who want to. Miss Gibbie says she wouldn't believe in it if it hadn't been for the war, but I believe in it because some things have to be burned out, and Major Alden needed to have his pride purified. You knew he used to be a beau of Miss Gibbie's, didn't you?" Mrs. Burnham shook her head.
It would be useless to attempt convincing the mere economist that this great city was a little better, a little happier, a little merrier, for the presence in it of the child, because he would not, even if convinced of the fact, recognize the gain; but I venture the assertion to him, that the conduct of not one of its inhabitants was the worse for the example of Gibbie's apparent idleness; and that not one of the poor women who now and then presented the small baronet with a penny, or a bit of bread, or a scrap of meat, or a pair of old trousers shoes nobody gave him, and he neither desired nor needed any ever felt the poorer for the gift, or complained that she should be so taxed.
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.
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