The night is the world's graveyard, and the cities are its catacombs. He repeated to himself all his own few ballads, then repeated them aloud as he walked, indulging the fancy that he had a long audience on each side of him; but he dropped into silence the moment any night-wanderer appeared. Presently he found himself on the shore of the river, and tried to get to the edge of the water;but it was low tide, the lamps did not throw much light so far, the moon was clouded, he got among logs and mud, and regained the street bemired, and beginning to feel weary. He was saying to himself what ever was he to do all the night long, when round a corner a little way off came a woman. It was no use asking counsel of her, however, or of anyone, he thought, so long as he did not know even the name of the street he wanted--a street which as he walked along it had seemed interminable. The woman drew near. She was rather tall, erect in the back, but bowed in the shoulders, with fierce black eyes, which were all that he could see of her face, for she had a little tartan shawl over her head, which she held together with one hand, while in the other she carried a basket. But those eyes were enough to make him fancy he must have seen her before. They were just passing each other, under a lamp, when she looked hard at him, and stopped.
"Man," she said, "I hae set e'en upo' your face afore!""Gien that be the case," answered Donal, "ye set e'en upo' 't again.""Whaur come ye frae?" she asked.
"That's what I wad fain speir mysel'," he replied. "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.""I never h'ard 'at tongues war cuttit shorter there nor ither gaits," said Donal;" but I didna mean ye ony offence.""There's nane ta'en, nor like to be," answered the woman.--"Ken ye a place they ca' Mains o' Glashruach?"As she spoke she let go her shawl, and it opened from her face like two curtains.
"Lord! it's the witch-wife!" cried Donal, retreating a pace in his astonishment.
The woman burst into a great laugh, a hard, unmusical, but not unmirthful laugh.
"Ay!" she said, "was that hoo the fowk wad hae't o' me?""It wasna muckle won'er, efter ye cam wydin' throu' watter yairds deep, an' syne gaed doon the spate on a bran'er.""Weel, it was the maddest thing!" she returned, with another laugh which stopped abruptly. "--I wadna dee the like again to save my life. But the Michty cairried me throu'.--An' hoo's wee Sir Gibbie?--Come in--I dinna ken yer name--but we're jist at the door o' my bit garret. Come quaiet up the stair, an' tell me a' aboot it.""Weel, I wadna be sorry to rist a bit, for I hae tint mysel a'thegither, an' I'm some tiret," answered Donal. "I but left the Mains thestreen.""Come in an' walcome; an whan ye're ristit, an' I'm rid o' my basket, I'll sune pit ye i' the gait o' hame."Donal was too tired, and too glad to be once more in the company of a human being, to pursue further explanation at present. He followed her, as quietly as he could, up the dark stair. When she struck a light, he saw a little garret-room--better than decently furnished, it seemed to the youth from the hills, though his mother would have thought it far from tidy. The moment the woman got a candle lighted, she went to a cupboard, and brought thence a bottle and a glass. When Donal declined the whisky she poured out, she seemed disappointed, and setting down the glass, let it stand. But when she had seated herself, and begun to relate her adventures in quest of Gibbie, she drew it towards her, and sipped as she talked.
Some day she would tell him, she said, the whole story of her voyage on the brander, which would make him laugh; it made her laugh, even now, when it came back to her in her bed at night, though she was far enough from laughing at the time. Then she told him a great deal about Gibbie and his father.
"An' noo," remarked Donal, "he'll be thinkin' 't a' ower again, as he rins aboot the toon this verra meenute, luikin' for me!""Dinna ye trible yersel' aboot him," said the woman. "He kens the toon as weel's ony rottan kens the drains o' 't.--But whaur div ye pit up?" she added, "for it's time dacent fowk was gauin' to their beds."Donal explainned that he knew neither the name of the street nor of the people where he was lodging.
"Tell me this or that--something--onything aboot the hoose or the fowk, or what they're like, an' it may be 'at I'll ken them," she said.
But scarcely had he begun his description of the house when she cried, "Hoot, man! it's at Lucky Murkison's ye are, i' the Wuddiehill.
Come awa', an' I s' tak ye hame in a jiffey."So saying, she rose, took the candle, showed him down the stair, and followed.
