He had no way of understanding or interpreting it save by calling to his aid the sad knowledge of evil, gathered in his earliest years. Except in the laird and Fergus and the gamekeeper, he had not, since fleeing from Lucky Croale's houff, seen a trace of unreasonable anger in any one he knew. Robert or Janet had never scolded him. He might go and come as he pleased. The night was sacred as the day in that dear house. His father, even when most overcome by the wicked thing, had never scolded him!
The boys remaining absolutely silent, the minister had it all his own way. But before he had begun to draw to a close, across the blinding mists of his fog-breeding wrath he began to be aware of the shining of two heavenly lights, the eyes, namely, of the dumb boy fixed upon him. They jarred him a little in his onward course; they shook him as if with a doubt; the feeling undefined slowly grew to a notion, first obscure, then plain: they were eyes of reproof that were fastened upon his! At the first suspicion, his anger flared up more fierce than ever; but it was a flare of a doomed flame; slowly the rebuke told, was telling; the self-satisfied in-the-rightness--a very different thing from righteousness--of the man was sinking before the innocent difference of the boy; he began to feel awkward, he hesitated, he ceased: for the moment Gibbie, unconsciously, had conquered; without knowing it, he was the superior of the two, and Mr. Sclater had begun to learn that he could never exercise authority over him. But the wordly-wise man will not seem to be defeated even where he knows he is. If he do give in, he will make it look as if it came of the proper motion of his own goodness.
After a slight pause, the minister spoke again, but with the changed tone of one who has had an apology made to him, whose anger is appeased, and who therefore acts the Neptune over the billows of his own sea. That was the way he would slide out of it.
"Donal Grant," he said, "you had better go to bed at once, and get fit for your work to-morrow. I will go with you to call upon the principal. Take care you are not out of the way when I come for you.--Get your cap, Sir Gilbert, and come. Mrs. Sclater was already very uneasy about you when I left her."Gibbie took from his pocket the little ivory tablets Mrs. Sclater had given him, wrote the following words, and handed them to the minister:
"Dear sir, I am going to slepe this night with Donal. The bed is bigg enuf for 2. Good night, sir."For a moment the minister's wrath seethed again. Like a volcano, however, that has sent out a puff of steam, but holds back its lava, he thought better of it: here was a chance of retiring with grace--in well-conducted retreat, instead of headlong rout.
"Then be sure you are home by lesson-time," he said. "Donal can come with you. Good night. Mind you don't keep each other awake."Donal said "Good night, sir," and Gibbie gave him a serious and respectful nod. He left the room, and the boys turned and looked at each other. Donal's countenance expressed an indignant sense of wrong, but Gibbie's revealed a more profound concern. He stood motionless, intent on the receding steps of the minister. The moment the sound of them ceased, he darted soundless after him.
Donal, who from Mr. Sclater's reply had understood what Gibbie had written, was astonished, and starting to his feet followed him. By the time he reached the door, Gibbie was past the second lamp, his shadow describing a huge half-circle around him, as he stole from lamp to lamp after the minister, keeping always a lamp-post still between them. When the minister turned a corner, Gibbie made a soundless dart to it, and peeped round, lingered a moment looking, then followed again. On and on went Mr. Sclater, and on and on went Gibbie, careful constantly not to be seen by him; and on and on went Donal, careful to be seen of neither. They went a long way as he thought, for to the country boy distance between houses seemed much greater than between dykes or hedges. At last the minister went up the steps of a handsome house, took a key from his pocket, and opened the door. From some impulse or other, as he stepped in, he turned sharp round, and saw Gibbie.
"Come in," he said, in a loud authoritative tone, probably taking the boy's appearance for the effect of repentance and a desire to return to his own bed.
Gibbie lifted his cap, and walked quietly on towards the other end of Daur-street. Donal dared not follow, for Mr. Sclater stood between, looking out. Presently however the door shut with a great bang, and Donal was after Gibbie like a hound. But Gibbie had turned a corner, and was gone from his sight. Donal turned a corner too, but it was a wrong corner. Concluding that Gibbie had turned another corner ahead of him, he ran on and on, in the vanishing hope of catching sight of him again; but he was soon satisfied he had lost him,--nor him only, but himself as well, for he had not the smallest idea how to return, even as far as the minister's house.
It rendered the matter considerably worse that, having never heard the name of the street where he lodged but once--when the minister gave direction to the porter, he had utterly forgotten it. So there he was, out in the night, astray in the streets of a city of many tens of thousands, in which he had never till that day set foot--never before having been in any larger abode of men than a scattered village of thatched roofs. But he was not tired, and so long as a man is not tired, he can do well, even in pain. But a city is a dreary place at night, even to one who knows his way in it--much drearier to one lost--in some respects drearier than a heath--except there be old mine-shafts in it.
"It's as gien a' the birds o' a country had creepit intil their bit eggs again, an' the day was left bare o' sang!" said the poet to himself as he walked. Night amongst houses was a new thing to him.
Night on the hillsides and in the fields he knew well; but this was like a place of tombs--what else, when all were dead for the night?
