A new sun rose upon Rescobie with the coming of Gibby the Eel. He had known both of his predecessors at college, and he had pumped them thoroughly upon the life and doctrine of their former chief. In addition to which Gilbert had taken to him a suit of tweeds and a fishing-rod, and with a piece of bread and cheese in his pocket, and guile in his heart, he had gone up the Rescobie water, asking for drinks at the farmhouses on the way, much as he used to perambulate Professor Galbraith's class-room in his old, abandoned, unregenerate, sans-dog-collar days.
Hitherto the helper, a mere transient bird-of-passage, had lodged with Mistress Honeytongue, the wife of Hosea Honeytongue, the beadle and minister's man of Rescobie. This brought the youth, as it were, under the shadow of the manse, and what was more to the point, under the eye of the minister. But Gilbert Denholm had other aims.
He took rooms in the village, quite three-quarters of a mile from the manse, with one Mrs. Tennant, the widow of a medical man in the neighbourhood who had died without making adequate provision for his family. She had never taken a lodger before, but since his investiture in clericals the Eel had filled out to a handsome figure, and he certainly smiled a most irresistible smile as he stood on the doorstep.
Gilbert arrived late one Friday night in Rescobie, and speculation was rife in the parish as to whether he would preach on Sabbath or not. Most were of the negative opinion, but Watty Learmont, for reasons of his own, offered to wager a new hat that he would.
On Saturday morning Gilbert put on his longest tails and his doggiest collar and marched boldly up to the front door of the manse, with the general air of playing himself along the road upon war pipes. Perhaps, however, he was only whistling silently to keep his courage up.
"Is Miss Girnigo at home?" said he to the somewhat stern-visaged personage who opened the door.
"I am Miss Girnigo," said a sepulchral voice. (Miss Girnigo was suffering from the summer cold which used to be called a "hay fever.")
"Indeed – I might have known; how delightful!" said the Eel, now, alas! transformed into an old serpent; "I am so glad to find you at home!"
"I am always at home!" returned Miss Girnigo, keeping up a semblance of severity, but secretly mollified by the homage of Gibby's smile.
"Then I hope you will let me come here very often. I shall find it lonely in the village, but I thought it better to be near my work," said Gilbert; "I am staying with Mrs. Tennant, the doctor's widow. Do you know Mrs. Tennant?"
"Oh, yes," said Miss Girnigo, smiling for the first time; "she is one of my dearest friends. I often go there to tea."
"I love tea," said Gilbert, with enthusiasm; "Mrs. Tennant has invited me to take tea in her parlour in the afternoon as often as I like, but I was not expecting such a reward as this!"
Miss Girnigo was considerably over forty, but she was even more than youthfully amenable to flattery and to the Eel's beaming and boyish face.
"You are the new assistant," she said, "Mister – ah – !"
"Denholm!" said Gilbert, smiling; "it is a nice name. Don't you think so?"
"I have not thought anything about the matter," said Miss Girnigo, bridling, yet with the ghost of a blush. "I do not charge my mind with such things. Have you come to see my father?"
"Yes, after a while. But just at present I would rather see your plants!" said the Serpent, who had been well coached. (No wonder Watty Learmont smiled when he asserted that the New Man would preach on Sunday.)
Now Miss Girnigo lived chiefly for her flowers. The Serpent had a list of them, roughly but accurately compiled from the lady's seed-merchant's ledger by a friend in the business. He had also a fund of information respecting "plants," very recently acquired, on his mind.
"How did you know I was fond of flowers?" asked Miss Girnigo.
"Could any one doubt it?" cried Gilbert, with enthusiasm. "Who was the Jo – " (he was on the brink of saying "Johnny") "g – gentleman of whom it was said: 'If you want to see his monument, look around' – Sir Christopher Wren, wasn't it? Well, I looked around as I came up the street!"
And Gilbert took in the whole front of the manse with his glance. It certainly was very pretty, covered from top to bottom with rambler roses and Virginia cress.
Gilbert entered, and as they passed in front of the minister's study door Miss Girnigo almost skittishly made a sign for silence, and Gilbert tip-toed past with an exaggeration of caution which made his companion laugh. They found themselves presently in the drawing-room, where again the flower-pots were everywhere, but specially banked round the oriel window. Gilbert named them one after the other like children at a baptism, with a sort of easy certainty and familiarity. His friend the nurseryman's clerk had not failed him. Miss Girnigo was delighted.
"Well," she said, "it is pleasant to have some one who knows Ceterach Officinarum from a kail-stock. We shall go botanising together!"
"Ye-es," said Gilbert, a little uncertainly, and with less enthusiasm than might have been expected.
"Good heavens," he was saying, "how shall I grind up the beastly thing if I have to live up to all this?"
But Miss Girnigo was in high good-humour, though her pleasure was sadly marred by the incipient cold in her head, which she was conscious prevented her from doing herself justice. At forty, eyes that water and a nose tipped with pink do not make for maiden beauty.
"I have a dreadful cold coming on, Mr. Denholm," she said; "I really am not fit to be seen. I wonder what I was thinking of to ask you in!"
"Try this," said Gilbert, pulling a kind of india-rubber puff-ball out of his pocket; "it is quite good. It makes you sneeze like the very – ahem – like anything. Stops a cold in no time – won't be happy till you get it!"
"I don't dare to – how does it work?" demurred Miss Girnigo.
Gilbert illustrated, and began to sneeze promptly, as the snuff titillated his air passages.
"Now you try!" he said, and smiled.
Gilbert held it insinuatingly to the lady's nostrils and pumped vigorously.
"A-tish – shoo!" remarked the lady, as if he had touched a spring.
"A-tish – shoo-oo-ooh!" replied Gilbert.
After that they responded antiphonally, like Alp answering Alp, till the door opened and Dr. Girnigo appeared with a half-written sheet of sermon paper in his hand.
The guilty pair stood rooted to the ground – at least, spasmodically so, for every other moment a sneeze lifted one of them upon tiptoe.
"What is this, Arabella, what is this? What is this young man doing here?"
"Don't be —a-tish – oo– stupid, papa! You know very well —shoo– it is Mr. Denholm, the new Assist —aroo!"
"Sir!" said Dr. Girnigo, turning upon his junior and angrily stamping his foot.
Gilbert held out his hand, and as the Doctor did not take it he waggled it feebly in the air with a sort of impotent good-fellowship.
"All right," he said; "better presently – only c-curing Miss – Miss Girni —goo-ahoo – arish-chee-hoo– of a cold!"
"I do not know any one of that name, sir!" thundered the Doctor, not wholly unreasonably.
"No?" said Gilbert, anxiously; "I understood that this —a-tishoo– lady was Miss Girnigo, though I thought she was too young for a daughter – your granddaughter, perhaps, Doctor?"
And the smile once more took in Miss Girnigo as if she had been a beautiful picture.
By this time Miss Girnigo had somewhat recovered.
"Papa," she said, sharply, "Mr. Denholm is going to be such an acquisition. He is a botanist – a Fellow of the Linnæan Society, I understand – "
"Of Pittenweem," muttered Gilbert between his teeth.
"And he is going to preach on Sunday. You have had a lot to worry you this week and need a