ut Gibbie and his father.

"An' noo," remarked Donal, "he'll be thinkin' 't a' ower again, as
he rins aboot the toon this verra meenute, luikin' for me!"

"Dinna ye trible yersel' aboot him," said the woman. "He kens the
toon as weel's ony rottan kens the drains o' 't.--But whaur div ye
pit up?" she added, "for it's time dacent fowk was gauin' to their
beds."

Donal explained that he knew neither the name of the street nor of
the people where he was lodging.

"Tell me this or that--something--onything aboot the hoose or the
fowk, or what they're like, an' it may be 'at I'll ken them," she
said.

But scarcely had he begun his description of the house when she
cried,

"Hoot, man! it's at Lucky Murkison's ye are, i' the Wuddiehill.
Come awa', an' I s' tak ye hame in a jiffey."

So saying, she rose, took the candle, showed him down the stair, and
followed.

It was past midnight, and the moon was down, but the street-lamps
were not yet extinguished, and they walked along without anything to
interrupt their conversation--chiefly about Sir Gibbie and Sir
George. But perhaps if Donal had known the cause of Gibbie's escape
from the city, and that the dread thing had taken place in this
woman's house, he would not have walked quite so close to her.

Poor Mistress Croale, however, had been nowise to blame for that,
and the shock it gave her had even done something to check the rate
of her downhill progress. It let her see, with a lightning flash
from the pit, how wide the rent now yawned between her and her
former respectability. She continued, as we know, to drink whisky,
and was not unfrequently overcome by it; but in her following life
as peddler, she measured her madness more; and, much in the open air
and walking a great deal, with a basket sometimes heavy, her
indulgence did her less physical harm; her temper recovered a
little, she regained a portion of her self-command; and at the close
of those years of wandering, she was less of a ruin, both mentally
and spiritually, than at their commencement.

When she received her hundred pounds for the finding of Sir Gibbie,
she rented a little shop in the gallery of the market, where she
sold such things as she had carried about the country, adding to her
stock, upon the likelihood of demand, without respect to unity
either conventional or real, in the character of the wares she
associated. The interest and respectability of this new start in
life, made a littl