SIR GIBBIE, page 49
CHAPTER LVI.
THE LAIRD AND THE PREACHER.
Since he came to town, Gibbie had seen Ginevra but once — that was in the North church. She looked so sad and white that his heart was very heavy for her. Could it be that she repented? — She must have done it to please her father! If she would marry Donal, he would engage to give her Glashruach. She should have Glashruach all the same whatever she did, only it might influence her father. He paced up and down before the cottage once for a whole night, but no good came of that. He paced before it from dusk to bedtime again and again, in the poor hope of a chance of speaking to Ginevra, but he never saw even her shadow on the white blind. He went up to the door once, but in the dread of displeasing her lost his courage, and paced the street the whole morning instead, but saw no one come out.
Fergus had gradually become essential to the small remaining happiness of which the laird was capable. He had gained his favour chiefly through the respect and kindly attention he showed him. The young preacher knew little of the laird’s career, and looked upon him as an unfortunate man, towards whom loyalty now required even a greater show of respect than while he owned his father’s farm. The impulse transmitted to him from the devotion of ancestors to the patriarchal head of the clan, had found blind vent in the direction of the mere feudal superior, and both the impulse and its object remained. He felt honoured, even now that he had reached the goal of his lofty desires and was a popular preacher, in being permitted to play backgammon with the great man, or to carve a chicken, when the now trembling hands, enfeebled far more through anxiety and disappointment than from age, found themselves unequal to the task: the laird had begun to tell long stories, and drank twice as much as he did a year ago; he was sinking in more ways than one.
Fergus at length summoned courage to ask him if he might pay his addresses to Miss Galbraith. The old man started, cast on him a withering look, murmured “The heiress of Glashruach!” remembered, threw himself back in his chair, and closed his eyes. Fergus, on the other side of the table, sat erect, a dice-box in his hand, waiting a reply. The father reflected that if he declined what he could not call an honour, he must lose what was unquestionably a comfort: how was he to pass all the evenings of the week without the preacher? On the other hand, if he accepted him, he might leave the miserable cottage, and go to the manse: from a moral point of view — that was, from the point of other people’s judgment of him — it would be of consequence to have a clergyman for a son-in-law. Slowly he raised himself in his chair, opened his unsteady eyes, which rolled and pitched like boats on a choppy sea, and said solemnly,
“You have my permission, Mr. Duff.”
The young preacher hastened to find Ginevra, but only to meet a refusal, gentle and sorrowful. He pleaded for permission to repeat his request after an interval, but she distinctly refused. She did not, however, succeed in making a man with such a large opinion of himself hopeless. Disappointed and annoyed he was, but he sought and fancied he found reasons for her decision which were not unfavourable to himself, and continued to visit her father as before, saying to him he had not quite succeeded in drawing from her a favourable answer, but hoped to prevail. He nowise acted the despairing lover, but made grander sermons than ever, and, as he came to feel at home in his pulpit, delivered them with growing force. But delay wrought desire in the laird; and at length, one evening, having by cross-questioning satisfied himself that Fergus made no progress, he rose, and going to his desk, handed him Donal’s verses. Fergus read them, and remarked he had read better, but the first stanza had a slight flavour of Shelley.
“I don’t care a straw about their merit or demerit,” said Mr. Galbraith; “poetry is nothing but spoilt prose. What I want to know is, whether they do not suggest a reason for your want of success with Jenny. Do you know the writing?”
“I cannot say I do. But I think it is very likely that of Donal Grant; he sets up for the Burns of Daurside.”
“Insolent scoundrel!” cried the laird, bringing down his fist on the table, and fluttering the wine glasses. “Next to superstition I hate romance — with my whole heart I do!” And something like a flash of cold moonlight on wintred water gleamed over, rather than shot from, his poor focusless eyes.
“But, my dear sir,” said Fergus, “if I am to understand these lines—”
“Yes! if you are to understand where there is no sense whatever!”
“I think I understand them — if you will excuse me for venturing to say so; and what I read in them is, that, whoever the writer may be, the lady, whoever she may be, had refused him.”
“You cannot believe that the wretch had the impudence to make my daughter — the heiress of — at least — What! make my daughter an offer! She would at once have acquainted me with the fact, that he might receive suitable chastisement. Let me look at the stuff again.”
“It is quite possible,” said Fergus, “it may be only a poem some friend has copied for her from a newspaper.”
While he spoke, the laird was reading the lines, and persuading himself he understood them. With sudden resolve, the paper held torch-like in front of him, he strode into the next room, where Ginevra sat.
“Do you tell me,” he said fiercely, “that you have so far forgotten all dignity and propriety as to give a dirty cow-boy the encouragement to make you an offer of marriage? The very notion sets my blood boiling. You will make me hate you, you — you — unworthy creature!”
Ginevra had turned white, but looking him straight in the face, she answered,
“If that is a letter for me, you know I have not read it.”
“There! see for yourself. — Poetry!” He uttered the word with contempt inexpressible.
She took the verses from his hand and read them. Even with her father standing there, watching her like an inquisitor, she could not help the tears coming in her eyes as she read.
“There is no such thing here, papa,” she said. “They are only verses — bidding me good-bye.”
“And what right has any such fellow to bid my daughter good-bye? Explain that to me, if you please. Of course I have been for many years aware of your love of low company, but I had hoped as you grew older you would learn manners: modesty would have been too much to look for. — If you had nothing to be ashamed of, why did you not tell me of the unpleasant affair? Is not your father your best friend?”
“Why should I make both him and you uncomfortable, papa — when there was not going to be anything more of it?”
“Why then do you go hankering after him still, and refusing Mr. Duff? It is true he is not exactly a gentleman by birth, but he is such by education, by manners, by position, by influence.”
“Papa, I have already told Mr. Duff, as plainly as I could without being rude, that I would never let him talk to me so. What lady would refuse Donal Grant and listen to him!”
“You are a bold, insolent hussey!” cried her father in fresh rage and leaving the room, rejoined Fergus.
They sat silent both for a while — then the preacher spoke.
“Other communications may have since reached her from the same quarter,” he said.
“That is impossible,” rejoined the laird.
“I don’t know that,” insisted Fergus. “There is a foolish — a half-silly companion of his about the town. They call him Sir Gibbie Galbraith.”
“Jenny knows no such person.”
“Indeed she does. I have seen them together.”
“Oh! you mean the lad the minister adopted! the urchin he took off the streets! — Sir Gibbie Galbraith!” he repeated sneeringly, but as one reflecting. “ — I do vaguely recall a slanderous rumour in which a certain female connection of the family was hinted at. — Yes! that’s where the nickname comes from. — And you think she keeps up a communication with the clown through him?”
“I don’t say that, sir. I merely think it possible she may see this Gibbie occasionally; and I know he worships the cow-boy: it is a positive feature of his foolishness, and I wish it were the worst.”
Therewith he told what he heard from Miss Kimble, and what he had seen for himself on the night when he watched Gibbie.
“Her very blood must be tainted!” said her father to himself, but added, “ — from her mother’s side;” and his attacks upon her after this were at least diurnal. It was a relief to his feeling of having wronged her, to abuse her with justice. For a while she tried hard to convince him now that this now that that notion of her conduct, or of Gibbie’s or Donal’s, was mistaken: he would listen to nothing she said, continually insisting that the only amends for her past was to marry according to his wishes; to give up superstition, and poetry, and cow-boys, and dumb rascals, and settle down into a respectable matron, a comfort to the gray hairs she was now bringing with sorrow to the grave. Then Ginevra became absolutely silent; he had taught her that any reply was but a new start for his objurgation, a knife wherewith to puncture a fresh gall-bladder of abuse. He stormed at her for her sullenness, but she persisted in her silence, sorely distressed to find how dead her heart seemed growing under his treatment of her: what would at one time have made her utterly miserable, now passed over her as one of the billows of a trouble that had to be borne, as one of the throbs of a headache, drawing from her scarcely a sigh. She did not understand that, her heaven being dark, she could see no individual cloud against it, that, her emotional nature untuned, discord itself had ceased to jar.
CHAPTER LVII.
A HIDING-PLACE FROM THE WIND.
Gibbie found everything at the Auld Hoose in complete order for his reception: Mistress Croale had been very diligent, and promised well for a housekeeper — looked well, too, in her black satin and lace, with her complexion, she justly flattered herself, not a little improved. She had a good meal ready for him, with every adjunct in proper style, during the preparation of which she had revelled in the thought that some day, when she had quite established her fitness for her new position, Sir Gibbie would certainly invite the minister and his lady to dine with him, when she, whom they were too proud to ask to partake of their cockie-leekie, would show them she knew both what a dinner ought to be, and how to preside at it; and the soup it should be cockie-leekie.
Everything went comfortably. Gibbie was so well up in mathematics, thanks to Mr. Sclater, that, doing all requisite for honourable studentship, but having no desire to distinguish himself, he had plenty of time for more important duty. Now that he was by himself, as if old habit had returned in the shape of new passion, he roamed the streets every night. His custom was this: after dinner, which he had when he came from college, about half-past four, he lay down, fell asleep in a moment, as he always did, and slept till half-past six; then he had tea, and after that, studied — not dawdled over his books, till ten o’clock, when he took his Greek Testament. At eleven he went out, seldom finally returning before half-past one, sometimes not for an hour longer — during which time Mistress Croale was in readiness to receive any guest he might bring home.
The history of the special endeavour he had now commenced does not belong to my narrative. Some nights, many nights together, he would not meet a single wanderer; occasionally he would meet two or three in the same night. When he found one, he would stand regarding him until he spoke. If the man was drunk he would leave him: such were not those for whom he could now do most. If he was sober, he made him signs of invitation. If he would not go with him, he left him, but kept him in view, and tried him again. If still he would not, he gave him a piece of bread, and left him. If he called, he stopped, and by circuitous ways brought him to the little house at the back. It was purposely quite dark. If the man was too apprehensive to enter, he left him; if he followed, he led him to Mistress Croale. If anything suggested the possibility of helping farther, a possibility turning entirely on the person’s self, the attempt was set on foot; but in general, after a good breakfast, Gibbie led him through a dark passage into the darkened house, and dismissed him from the door by which he had entered. He never gave money, and never sought such guest except in the winter. Indeed, he was never in the city in the summer. Before the session was over, they had one woman and one girl in a fair way of honest livelihood, and one small child, whose mother had an infant besides, and was evidently dying, he had sent “in a present” to Janet, by the hand of Mistress Murkison. Altogether it was a tolerable beginning, and during the time not a word reached him indicating knowledge of his proceedings, although within a week or two a rumour was rife in the lower parts of the city, of a mysterious being who went about doing this and that for poor folk, but, notwithstanding his gifts, was far from canny.
Mr. and Mrs. Sclater could not fail to be much annoyed when they found he was no longer lodging with Mistress Murkison, but occupying the Auld Hoose, with “that horrible woman” for a housekeeper; they knew, however, that expostulation with one possessed by such a headstrong sense of duty was utterly useless, and contented themselves with predicting to each other some terrible check, the result of his ridiculous theory concerning what was required of a Christian — namely, that the disciple should be as his Master. At the same time Mrs. Sclater had a sacred suspicion that no real ill would ever befall God’s innocent, Gilbert Galbraith.
Fergus had now with his father’s help established himself in the manse of the North Church, and thither he invited Mr. and Miss Galbraith to dine with him on a certain evening. Her father’s absolute desire compelled Ginevra’s assent; she could not, while with him, rebel absolutely. Fergus did his best to make the evening a pleasant one, and had special satisfaction in showing the laird that he could provide both a good dinner and a good bottle of port. Two of his congregation, a young lawyer and his wife, were the only other guests. The laird found the lawyer an agreeable companion, chiefly from his readiness to listen to his old law stories, and Fergus laid himself out to please the two ladies: secure of the admiration of one, he hoped it might help to draw the favour of the other. He had conceived the notion that Ginevra probably disliked his profession, and took pains therefore to show how much he was a man of the world — talked about Shakspere, and flaunted rags of quotation in elocutionary style; got books from his study, and read passages from Byron, Shelley, and Moore — chiefly from “The Loves of the Angels” of the last, ecstasizing the lawyer’s lady, and interesting Ginevra, though all he read taken together seemed to her unworthy of comparison with one of poor Donal’s songs.
It grew late. The dinner had been at a fashionable hour; they had stayed an unfashionable time: it was nearly twelve o’clock when guests and host left the house in company. The lawyer and his wife went one way, and Fergus went the other with the laird and Ginevra.
Hearing the pitiful wailing of a child and the cough of a woman, as they went along a street bridge, they peeped over the parapet, and saw, upon the stair leading to the lower street, a woman, with a child asleep in her lap, trying to eat a piece of bread, and coughing as if in the last stage of consumption. On the next step below sat a man hushing in his bosom the baby whose cry they had heard. They stood for a moment, the minister pondering whether his profession required of him action, and Ginevra’s gaze fixed on the head and shoulders of the foreshortened figure of the man, who vainly as patiently sought to soothe the child by gently rocking it to and fro. But when he began a strange humming song to it, which brought all Glashgar before her eyes, Ginevra knew beyond a doubt that it was Gibbie. At the sound the child ceased to wail, and presently the woman with difficulty rose, laying a hand for help on Gibbie’s shoulder. Then Gibbie rose also, cradling the infant on his left arm, and making signs to the mother to place the child on his right. She did so, and turning, went feebly up the stair. Gibbie followed with the two children, one lying on his arm, the other with his head on his shoulder, both wretched and pining, with gray cheeks, and dark hollows under their eyes. From the top of the stair they went slowly up the street, the poor woman coughing, and Gibbie crooning to the baby, who cried no more, but now and then moaned. Then Fergus said to the laird:
“Did you see that young man, sir? That is the so-called Sir Gilbert Galbraith we were talking of the other night. They say he has come into a good property, but you may judge for yourself whether he seems fit to manage it!”
Ginevra withdrew her hand from his arm.
“Good God, Jenny!” exclaimed the laird, “you do not mean to tell me you have ever spoken to a young man like that?”
“I know him very well, papa,” replied Ginevra, collectedly.
“You are incomprehensible, Jenny! If you know him, why do I not know him? If you had not known good reason to be ashamed of him, you would, one time or other, have mentioned his name in my hearing. — I ask you, and I demand an answer,” — here he stopped, and fronted her— “why have you concealed from me your acquaintance with this — this — person?”
“Because I thought it might be painful to you, papa,” she answered, looking in his face.
“Painful to me! Why should it be painful to me — except indeed that it breaks my heart as often as I see you betray your invincible fondness for low company?”
“Do you desire me to tell you, papa, why I thought it might be painful to you to make that young man’s acquaintance?”
