“Shame!” the doctor cried. “Look at Mr. Duthie. Is he ashamed? And yet that man has been reproving me for a twelvemonths because I’ve refused to become one of his elders. Duthie,” he shouted, “think shame of yourself for curling this day.”
Mr. Duthie had carefully turned his back to the trap, for Gavin’s presence in it annoyed him. We seldom care to be reminded of our duty by seeing another do it. Now, however, he advanced to the dogcart, taking the far side of Gavin.
“Put on your coat, Mr. Duthie,” said the doctor, “and come with me to Nanny Webster’s. You promised.”
Mr. Duthie looked quizzically at Gavin, and then at the sky.
“The thaw may come at any moment,” he said.
“I think the frost is to hold,” said Gavin.
“It may hold over to-morrow,” Mr. Duthie admitted; “but to-morrow’s the Sabbath, and so a lost day.”
“A what?” exclaimed Gavin, horrified.
“I only mean,” Mr. Duthie answered, colouring, “that we can’t curl on the Lord’s day. As for what it may be like on Monday, no one can say. No, doctor, I won’t risk it. We’re in the middle of a game, man.”
Gavin looked very grave.
“I see what you are thinking, Mr. Dishart,” the old minister said doggedly; “but then, you don’t curl. You are very wise. I have forbidden my sons to curl.”
“Then you openly snap your fingers at your duty, Mr. Duthie?” said the doctor, loftily. (“You can let go my tails now, Mr. Dishart, for the madness has passed.”)
“None of your virtuous airs, McQueen,” said Mr. Duthie, hotly. “What was the name of the doctor that warned women never to have bairns while it was hauding?”
“And what,” retorted McQueen, “was the name of the minister that told his session he would neither preach nor pray while the black frost lasted?”
“Hoots, doctor,” said Duthie, “don’t lose your temper because I’m in such form.”
“Don’t lose yours, Duthie, because I aye beat you.”
“You beat me, McQueen! Go home, sir, and don’t talk havers. Who beat you at——”
“Who made you sing small at——”
“Who won——”
“Who——”
“Who——”
“I’ll play you on Monday for whatever you like!” shrieked the doctor.
“If it holds,” cried the minister, “I’ll be here the whole day. Name the stakes yourself. A stone?”
“No,” the doctor said, “but I’ll tell you what we’ll play for. You’ve been dinging me doited about that eldership, and we’ll play for’t. If you win I accept office.”
“Done,” said the minister, recklessly.
The dogcart was now turned toward Windyghoul, its driver once more good-humoured, but Gavin silent.
“You would have been the better of my deaf ear just now, Mr. Dishart,” McQueen said after the loch had been left behind. “Aye, and I’m thinking my pipe would soothe you. But don’t take it so much to heart, man. I’ll lick him easily. He’s a decent man, the minister, but vain of his play, ridiculously vain. However, I think the sight of you, in the place that should have been his, has broken his nerve for this day, and our side may win yet.”
“I believe,” Gavin said, with sudden enlightenment, “that you brought me here for that purpose.”
“Maybe,” chuckled the doctor; “maybe.” Then he changed the subject suddenly. “Mr. Dishart,” he asked, “were you ever in love?”
“Never!” answered Gavin violently.
“Well, well,” said the doctor, “don’t terrify the horse. I have been in love myself. It’s bad, but it’s nothing to curling.”
Chapter Twelve.
Tragedy of a Mud House
The dogcart bumped between the trees of Caddam, flinging Gavin and the doctor at each other as a wheel rose on some beech-root or sank for a moment in a pool. I suppose the wood was a pretty sight that day, the pines only white where they had met the snow, as if the numbed painter had left his work unfinished, the brittle twigs snapping overhead, the water as black as tar. But it matters little what the wood was like. Within a squirrel’s leap of it an old woman was standing at the door of a mud house listening for the approach of the trap that was to take her to the poorhouse. Can you think of the beauty of the day now?
Nanny was not crying. She had redd up her house for the last time and put on her black merino. Her mouth was wide open while she listened. If you had addressed her you would have thought her polite and stupid. Look at her. A flabby-faced woman she is now, with a swollen body, and no one has heeded her much these thirty years. I can tell you something; it is almost droll. Nanny Webster was once a gay flirt, and in Airlie Square there is a weaver with an unsteady head who thought all the earth of her. His loom has taken a foot from his stature, and gone are Nanny’s raven locks on which he used to place his adoring hand. Down in Airlie Square he is weaving for his life, and here is Nanny, ripe for the poorhouse, and between them is the hill where they were lovers. That is all the story save that when Nanny heard the dogcart she screamed.
No neighbour was with her. If you think this hard, it is because you do not understand. Perhaps Nanny had never been very lovable except to one man, and him, it is said, she lost through her own vanity; but there was much in her to like. The neighbours, of whom there were two not a hundred yards away, would have been with her now but they feared to hurt her feelings. No heart opens to sympathy without letting in delicacy, and these poor people knew that Nanny would not like them to see her being taken away. For a week they had been aware of what was coming, and they had been most kind to her, but that hideous word, the poorhouse, they had not uttered. Poorhouse is not to be spoken in Thrums, though it is nothing to tell a man that you see death in his face. Did Nanny think they knew where she was going? was a question they whispered to each other, and her suffering eyes cut scars on their hearts. So now that the hour had come they called their children into their houses and pulled down their blinds.
“If you would like to see her by yourself,” the doctor said eagerly to Gavin, as the horse drew up at Nanny’s gate, “I’ll wait with the horse. Not,” he added, hastily, “that I feel sorry for her. We are doing her a kindness.”
They dismounted together, however, and Nanny, who had run from the trap into the house, watched them from her window.
McQueen saw her and said glumly, “I should have come alone, for if you pray she is sure to break down. Mr. Dishart, could you not pray cheerfully?”
“You don’t look very cheerful yourself,” Gavin said sadly.
“Nonsense,” answered the doctor. “I have no patience with this false sentiment. Stand still, Lightning, and be thankful you are not your master to-day.”
The door stood open, and Nanny was crouching against the opposite wall of the room, such a poor, dull kitchen, that you would have thought the furniture had still to be brought into it. The blanket and the piece of old carpet that was Nanny’s coverlet were already packed in her box. The plate rack was empty. Only the round table and the two chairs, and the stools and some pans were being left behind.
“Well, Nanny,” the doctor said, trying to bluster, “I have come, and you see Mr. Dishart is with me.”
Nanny