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The moment Gibbie ended his greetings, he had darted off to tell Donal: it was not his custom to enjoy alone anything sharable. The news that Ginevra was at that moment seated in Mrs. Sclater's house, at that moment, as his eagerness had misunderstood Gibbie's, expecting his arrival, raised such a commotion in Donal's atmosphere, that for a time it was but a huddle of small whirlwinds.
Sclater's, until its expression at length was that of pitiful unconscious reproof, mingled with sympathetic shame. He had never met anything like this before. Nothing low like this for all injustice, and especially all that sort of thing which Janet called "dingin' the motes wi' the beam," is eternally low had Gibbie seen in the holy temple of Glashgar!
He knew the ways of the one, and not the ways of the other. Chairs ornate were doubtless poor things to daisied banks, yet the other day he had hardly brought himself to sit on one of Mrs. Sclater's! It was a moment of awful seeming. But what would he not face to see once more the lovely lady-girl!
Obedient to Gibbie's will, the old man took the seat, with an air both of humility and respect, while happily for Mrs. Sclater's remnant of ruffled composure, there was plenty of room in the pew, so that she could move higher up.
He took it in his horny palm, shook it hither and thither sideways, like a leaf in a doubtful air, then held it like a precious thing he was at once afraid of crushing by too tight a grasp, and of dropping from too loose a hold, until Ginevra took charge of it herself again. Gibbie danced about behind him, all but standing on one leg, but, for Mrs. Sclater's sake, restraining himself.
Gibbie gave a great sigh to think of the girl that loved the hill and the heather and the burns, shut up in the city, and every Sunday going to the great church with which in Gibbie's mind was associated no sound of glad tidings. To him Glashgar was full of God; the North church or Mr. Sclater's church well, he had tried hard, but had not succeeded in discovering temple-signs about either.
It is better to have many upon the high road of learning, than a few even at its goal, if that were possible. As to Donal's going to Mr. Sclater's house, Janet soon relieved him. "Na, na, sir," she said; "it wad be to learn w'ys 'at wadna be fittin' a puir lad like him." "It would be much safer for him." said Mr. Sclater, but incidentally.
When at length he set him to Greek, he was astonished at the avidity with which he learned it! What Gibbie made of Mr. Sclater's prayers, either in congregational or family devotion, I am at some loss to imagine.
The first three points dealt with matters directly concerning the Sixteenth Division, but in the fourth, weighty emphasis was laid on the suggestion of recruiting Volunteers for Home Defence. Sir Henry Sclater's reply omitted completely all reference to this last an omission on which Redmond commented sharply.
Sclater's, to find the heirs of men who died intestate; but what made it so indubitably, so emphatically, so individually, so pressingly Mr. Sclater's, that he forgot breakfast, tablecloth, wife, and sermon, all together, that he might see to this boy's rights? Surely if they were rights, they could be in no such imminent danger as this haste seemed to signify.
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