Chapter 11 - Page 2

in the church, but though the family's distress was great,
they neither bore her out, nor signed to the kirk-officer to bring
water. They propped her up in the pew in a respectful attitude,
joining in the singing meanwhile, and she recovered in time to
look up 2nd Chronicles, 21st and 7th.

"Tell him I want to speak to him at the door," said the doctor
fiercely, "or I'll bleed you this minute."

McQueen would not enter, because his horse might have seized the
opportunity to return stablewards. At the houses where it was
accustomed to stop, it drew up of its own accord, knowing where
the Doctor's "cases" were as well as himself, but it resented new
patients.

"You like misery, I think, Mr. Dishart," McQueen said when Gavin
came to him, "at least I am always finding you in the thick of it,
and that is why I am here now. I have a rare job for you if you
will jump into the machine. You know Nanny Webster, who lives on
the edge of Windyghoul? No, you don't, for she belongs to the
other kirk. Well, at all events, you knew her brother, Sanders,
the mole-catcher?"

"I remember him. You mean the man who boasted so much about seeing
a ball at Lord Rintoul's place?"

"'The same, and, as you may know, his boasting about maltreating
policemen whom he never saw led to his being sentenced to nine
months in gaol lately."

"That is the man," said Gavin. "I never liked him."

"No, but his sister did," McQueen answered, drily, "and with
reason, for he was her breadwinner, and now she is starving."

"Anything I can give her--"

"Would be too little, sir."

"But the neighbours--"

"She has few near her, and though the Thrums poor help each other
bravely, they are at present nigh as needy as herself. Nanny is
coming to the poorhouse, Mr. Dishart."

"God help her!" exclaimed Gavin.

"Nonsense," said the doctor, trying to make himself a hard man.
"She will be properly looked after there, and--and in time she
will like it."

"Don't let my mother hear you speaking of taking an old woman to
that place," Gavin said, looking anxiously up the stair. I cannot
pretend that Margaret never listened.

"You all speak as if the poorhouse was a gaol," the doctor said
testily. "But so far as Nanny is concerned, everything is
arranged. I promised to drive her to the poorhouse to-day, and she
is waiting for me now. Don't look at me as if I was a brute. She
is to take some of her things with her to the poorhouse, and the
rest is to be left until Sanders's