In the garden McQueen said to Gavin:—
“You may be right, Mr. Dishart, in this matter,
for there is this in our favour, that the woman can
gain nothing by tricking us. She did seem to
feel for Nanny. But who can she be? You saw
she could put on and off the Scotch tongue as easily
as if it were a cap.”
“She is as much a mystery to me as to you,”
Gavin answered, “but she will give me the money,
and that is all I ask of her.”
“Ay, that remains to be seen. But take
care of yourself; a man’s second childhood begins
when a woman gets hold of him.”
“Don’t alarm yourself about me, doctor.
I daresay she is only one of those gypsies from the
South. They are said to be wealthy, many of them,
and even, when they like, to have a grand manner.
The Thrums people had no doubt but that she was what
she seemed to be.”
“Ay, but what does she seem to be? Even
that puzzles me. And then there is this mystery
about her which she admits herself, though perhaps
only to play with us.”
“Perhaps,” said Gavin, “she is only
taking precautions against her discovery by the police.
You must remember her part in the riots.”
“Yes, but we never learned how she was able
to play that part. Besides, there is no fear
in her, or she would not have ventured back to Thrums.
However, good luck attend you. But be wary.
You saw how she kept her feet among her shalls and
wills? Never trust a Scotch man or woman who
does not come to grief among them.”
The doctor took his seat in the dog-cart.
“And, Mr. Dishart,” he called out, “that
was all nonsense about the locket.”
The minister dances to the
woman’s piping.
Gavin let the doctor’s warnings fall in the
grass. In his joy over Nanny’s deliverance
he jumped the garden gate, whose hinges were of yarn,
and cleverly caught his hat as it was leaving his head
in protest. He then re-entered the mud house
staidly. Pleasant was the change. Nanny’s
home was as a clock that had been run out, and is
set going again. Already the old woman was unpacking
her box, to increase the distance between herself
and the poorhouse. But Gavin only saw her in
the background, for the Egyptian, singing at her work,
had become the heart of the house. She had flung
her shawl over Nanny’s shoulders, and was at
the fireplace breaking peats with the leg of a stool.
She turned merrily to the minister to ask him to chop
up his staff for firewood, and he would have answered
wittily but could not. Then, as often, the beauty
of the Egyptian surprised him into silence. I
could never get used to her face myself in the after-days.
It has always held me wondering, like my own Glen
Quharity on a summer day, when the sun is lingering
and the clouds are on the march, and the glen is never
the same for two minutes, but always so beautiful as
to make me sad. Never will I attempt to picture
the Egyptian as she seemed to Gavin while she bent
over Nanny’s fire, never will I describe my
glen. Yet a hundred times have I hankered after
trying to picture both.
