straight to the
country, and search was confined to the city.

The murderers were at length discovered, tried, and executed. They
protested their innocence with regard to the child, and therein
nothing appeared against them beyond the fact that he was missing.
The result, so far as concerned Gibbie, was, that the talk of the
city, where almost everyone knew him, was turned, in his absence,
upon his history; and from the confused mass of hearsay that reached
him, Mr. Sclater set himself to discover and verify the facts. For
this purpose he burrowed about in the neighbourhoods Gibbie had
chiefly frequented, and was so far successful as to satisfy himself
that Gibbie, if he was alive, was Sir Gilbert Galbraith, Baronet;
but his own lawyer was able to assure him that not an inch of
property remained anywhere attached to the title. There were indeed
relations of the boy's mother, who were of some small consequence in
a neighbouring county, also one in business in Glasgow, or its
neighbourhood, reported wealthy; but these had entirely disowned her
because of her marriage. All Mr. Sclater discovered besides was, in
a lumber-room next the garret in which Sir George died, a box of
papers--a glance at whose contents showed that they must at least
prove a great deal of which he was already certain from other
sources. A few of them had to do with the house in which they were
found, still known as the Auld Hoose o' Galbraith; but most of them
referred to property in land, and many were of ancient date. If the
property were in the hands of descendants of the original stock, the
papers would be of value in their eyes; and, in any case, it would
be well to see to their safety. Mr. Sclater therefore had the chest
removed to the garret of the manse, where it stood thereafter,
little regarded, but able to answer for more than itself.

CHAPTER IX.

ADRIFT.

Gibbie was now without a home. He had had a whole city for his
dwelling, every street of which had been to him as another hall in
his own house, every lane as a passage from one set of rooms to
another, every court as a closet, every house as a safe, guarding
the only possessions he had, the only possessions he knew how to
value--his fellow-mortals, radiant with faces, and friendly with
hands and tongues. Great as was his delight in freedom, a delight
he revelled in from morning to night, and sometimes from night to
morning, he had never had a notion of it that rea