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THE MUCKLE HOOSE.
The next morning, Janet felt herself in duty bound to make inquiry
concerning those interested in Miss Galbraith. She made, therefore,
the best of her way with Gibbie to the Muckle Hoose, but, as the
latter expected, found it a ruin in a wilderness. Acres of trees
and shrubbery had disappeared, and a hollow waste of sand and gravel
was in their place. What was left of the house stood on the edge of
a red gravelly precipice of fifty feet in height, at whose foot lay
the stones of the kitchen-wing, in which had been the room whence
Gibbie carried Ginevra. The newer part of the house was gone from
its very roots; the ancient portion, all innovation wiped from it,
stood grim, desolated, marred, and defiant as of old. Not a sign of
life was about the place; the very birds had fled. Angus had been
there that same morning, and had locked or nailed up every possible
entrance: the place looked like a ruin of centuries. With
difficulty they got down into the gulf, with more difficulty crossed
the burn, clambered up the rocky bank on the opposite side, and
knocked at the door of the gamekeeper's cottage. But they saw only
a little girl, who told them her father had gone to find the laird,
that her mother was ill in bed, and Mistress Mac Farlane on her way
to her own people.
It came out afterwards that when Angus and the housekeeper heard
Gibbie's taps at the window, and, looking out, saw nobody there, but
the burn within a few yards of the house, they took the warning for
a supernatural interference to the preservation of their lives, and
fled at once. Passing the foot of the stair, Mistress Mac Farlane
shrieked to Ginevra to come, but ran on without waiting a reply.
They told afterwards that she left the house with them, and that,
suddenly missing her, they went back to look for her, but could find
her nowhere, and were just able to make their second escape with
their lives, hearing the house fall into the burn behind them.
Mistress Mac Farlane had been severe as the law itself against
lying among the maids, but now, when it came to her own defence
where she knew her self wrong, she lied just like one of the wicked.
"My dear missie," said Janet, when they got home, "ye maun write to
yer father, or he'll be oot o' 's wuts aboot ye."
Ginevra wrote therefore to the duke's, and to the laird's usual
address in London as well; but he was on his way from the one place
to the other when Angus overtook him, and received neither letter.
Now came to the girl a few such days of delight, of freedom, of
life, as she had never even dreamed of. She roamed Glashgar with
Gibbie, the gentlest, kindest, most interesting of companions.
Wherever his sheep went, she went too, and to many places
besides -- some of them such strange, wild, terrible places, as would
have terrified her without him. How he startled her once by darting
off a rock like a seagull, straight, head-foremost, into the
Death-pot! She screamed with horror, but he had done it only to
amuse her; for, after what seemed to her a fearful time, he came
smiling up out of the terrible darkness. What a brave, beautiful
boy he was! He never hurt anything, and nothing ever seemed to hurt
him. And what a number of things he knew! He showed her things on
the mountain, things in the sky, things in the pools and streams
wherever they went. He did better than tell her about them; he made
her see them, and then the things themselves told her. She was not
always certain she saw just what he wanted her to see, but she
always saw something that made her glad with knowledge. He had a
New Testament Janet had given him, which he carried in his pocket,
and when she joined him, for he was always out with his sheep hours
before she was up, she would generally find him seated on a stone,
or lying in the heather, with the little book in his hand, looking
solemn and sweet. But the moment he saw her, he would spring
merrily up to welcome her. It were indeed an argument against
religion as strong as sad, if one of the children the kingdom
specially claims, could not be possessed by the life of the Son of
God without losing his simplicity and joyousness. Those of my
readers will be the least inclined to doubt the boy, who, by
obedience, have come to know its reward. For obedience alone holds
wide the door for the entrance of the spirit of wisdom. There was
as little to wonder at in Gibbie as there was much to love and
admire, for from the moment when, yet a mere child, he heard there
was such a one claiming his obedience, he began to turn to him the
hearing ear, the willing heart, the ready hand. The main thing
which rendered this devotion more easy and natural to him than to
others was, that, more than in most, the love of man had in him
prepared the way of the Lord. He who so loved the sons of men was
ready to love the Son of Man the moment he heard of him; love makes
obedience a joy; and of him who obeys all heaven is the
patrimony -- he is fellow-heir with Christ.
On the fourth day, the rain, which had been coming and going,
finally cleared off, the sun was again glorious, and the farmers
began to hope a little for the drying and ripening of some portion
of their crops. Then first Ginevra asked Gibbie to take her down to
Glashruach; she wanted to see the ruin they had described to her.
When she came near, and notions changed into visible facts, she
neither wept nor wailed. She felt very miserable, it is true, but
it was at finding that the evident impossibility of returning
thither for a long time, woke in her pleasure and not pain. So
utterly altered was the look of everything, that had she come upon
it unexpectedly, she would not have recognized either place or
house. They went up to a door. She seemed never to have seen it;
but when they entered, she knew it as one from the hall into a
passage, which, with what it led to, being gone, the inner had
become an outer door. A quantity of sand was heaped up in the hall,
and the wainscot was wet and swelled and bulging. They went into
the dining-room. It was a miserable sight -- the very picture of the
soul of a drunkard. The thick carpet was sodden -- spongy like a bed
of moss after heavy rains; the leather chairs looked diseased; the
colour was all gone from the table; the paper hung loose from the
walls; and everything lay where the water, after floating it about,
had let it drop as it ebbed.
She ascended the old stone stair which led to her father's rooms
above, went into his study, in which not a hair was out of its
place, and walked towards the window to look across to where once
had been her own chamber. But as she approached it, there, behind
the curtain, she saw her father, motionless, looking out. She
turned pale, and stood. Even at such a time, had she known he was
in the house, she would not have dared set her foot in that room.
Gibbie, who had followed and entered behind her, preceived her
hesitation, saw and recognized the back of the laird, knew that she
was afraid of her father, and stood also waiting he know not what.
"Eh!" he said to himself, "hers is no like mine! Nae mony has had
fathers sae guid's mine."
Becoming aware of a presence, the laird half turned, and seeing
Gibbie, imagined he had entered in a prowling way, supposing the
place deserted. With stately offence he asked him what he wanted
there, and waved his dismissal. Then first he saw another, standing
white-faced, with eyes fixed upon him. He turned pale also, and
stood staring at her. The memory of that moment ever after
disgraced him in his own eyes: for one instant of unreasoning
weakness, he imagined he saw a ghost -- believed what he said he knew
to be impossible. It was but one moment but it might have been
more, had not Ginevra walked slowly up to him, saying in a trembling
voice, as if she expected the blame of all that had happened, "I
couldn't help it, papa." He took her in his arms, and, for the
first time since the discovery of her atrocious familiarity with
Donal, kissed her. She clung to him, trembling now with pleasure as
well as apprehension. But, alas! there was no impiety in the
faithlessness that pronounced such a joy too good to endure, and the
end came yet sooner than she feared. For, when the father rose
erect from her embrace, and was again the laird, there, to his
amazement, still stood the odd-looking, outlandish intruder, smiling
with the most impertinent interest! Gibbie had forgotten himself
altogether, beholding what he took for a thorough reconciliation.
"Go away, boy. You have nothing to do here," said the laird, anger
almost overwhelming his precious dignity.
"Oh, papa!" cried Ginevra, clasping her hands, "that's Gibbie! He
saved my life. I should have been drowned but for him."
The laird was both proud and stupid, therefore more than ordinarily
slow to understand what he was unprepared to hear.
"I am much obliged to him," he said haughtily; "but there is no
occasion for him to wait."
At this point his sluggish mind began to recall something: -- why,
this was the very boy he saw in the meadow with her that
morning! -- He turned fiercely upon him where he lingered, either
hoping for a word of adieu from Ginevra, or unwilling to go while
she was uncomfortable.
"Leave the house instantly," he said, "or I will knock you down."
"O papa!" moaned Ginevra wildly -- it was the braver of her that she
was trembling from head to foot -- "don't speak so to Gibbie. He is a
good boy. It was he that Angus whipped so cruelly -- long ago: I have
never been able to forget it."
Her father was confounded at her presumption: how dared she
expostulate with him! She had grown a bold, bad girl! Good
heavens! Evil communications!
"If he does not get out of this directly," he cried, "I will have
him whipped again. Angus."
He shouted the name, and its echo came back in a wild tone,
altogether strange to Ginevra. She seemed struggling in the meshes
of an evil dream. Involuntarily she uttered a cry of terror and
distress. Gibbie was at her side instantly, putting out his hand to
comfort her. She was just laying hers on his arm, scarcely knowing
what she did, when her father seized him, and dashed him to the
other side of the room. He went staggering backwards, vainly trying
to recover himself, and fell, his head striking against the wall.
The same instant Angus entered, saw nothing of Gibbie where he lay,
and approached his master. But when he caught sight of Ginevra, he
gave a gasp of terror that ended in a broken yell, and stared as if
he had come suddenly on the verge of the bottomless pit, while all
round his head his hair stood out as if he had been electrified.
Before he came to himself, Gibbie had recovered and risen. He saw
now that he could be of no service to Ginevra, and that his presence
only made things worse for her. But he saw also that she was
unhappy about him, and that must not be. He broke into such a merry
laugh -- and it had need to be merry, for it had to do the work of
many words of reassurance -- that she could scarcely refrain from a
half-hysterical response as he walked from the room. The moment he
was out of the house, he began to sing; and for many minutes, as he
walked up the gulf hollowed by the Glashburn, Ginevra could hear the
strange, other-world voice, and knew it was meant to hold communion
with her and comfort her.
"What do you know of that fellow, Angus!" asked his master.
"He's the verra deevil himsel', sir," muttered Angus, whom Gibbie's
laughter had in a measure brought to his senses.
"You will see that he is sent off the property at once -- and for
good, Angus," said the laird. "His insolence is insufferable. The
scoundrel!"
On the pretext of following Gibbie, Angus was only too glad to leave
the room. Then Mr. Galbraith upon his daughter.
"So, Jenny!" he said, with, his loose lips pulled out straight,
"that is the sort of companion you choose when left to yourself! -- a
low, beggarly, insolent scamp! -- scarcely the equal of the brutes he
has the charge of!"
"They're sheep, papa!" pleaded Ginevra, in a wail that rose almost
to a scream.
"I do believe the girl is an idiot!" said her father, and turned
from her contemptuously.
"I think I am, papa," she sobbed. "Don't mind me. Let me go away,
and I will never trouble you any more." She would go to the
mountain, she thought, and be a shepherdess with Gibbie.
Her father took her roughly by the arm, pushed her into a closet,
locked the door, went and had his luncheon, and in the afternoon,
having borrowed Snowball, took her just as she was, drove to meet
the mail coach, and in the middle of the night was set down with her
at the principal hotel in the city, whence the next morning he set
out early to find a school where he might leave her and his
responsibility with her.
When Gibbie knew himself beyond the hearing of Ginevra, his song
died away, and he went home sad. The gentle girl had stepped at
once from the day into the dark, and he was troubled for her. But
he remembered that she had another father besides the laird, and
comforted himself.
When he reached home, he found his mother in serious talk with a
stranger. The tears were in her eyes, and had been running down her
cheeks, but she was calm and dignified as usual.
"Here he comes!" she said as he entered. "The will o' the Lord be
dene -- noo an' for ever-mair! I'm at his biddin'. -- An' sae's
Gibbie."
It was Mr. Sclater. The witch had sailed her brander well.
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