CHAPTER X
GAVINIA ON THE TRACK
Corp, you remember, had said that he would go to the stake rather thanbreak his promise; and he meant it, too, though what the stake was,and why such a pother about going to it, he did not know. He was tolearn now, however, for to the stake he had to go. This was becauseGavinia, when folding up his clothes, found in one of the pockets aglove wrapped in silk paper.
Tommy had forgotten it until too late, for when he asked Corp for theglove it was already in Gavinia's possession, and she had declined toreturn it without an explanation. "You must tell her nothing," Tommysaid sternly. He was uneasy, but relieved to find that Corp did notknow whose glove it was, nor even why gentlemen carry a lady's glovein their pocket.
At first Gavinia was mildly curious only, but her husband's refusal toanswer any questions roused her dander. She tried cajolery, fried histake of trout deliciously for him, and he sat down to them sniffing.They were small, and the remainder of their brief career was in twoparts. First he lifted them by the tail, then he laid down the tail.But not a word about the glove.
She tried tears. "Dinna greet, woman," he said in distress. "Whatwould the bairn say if he kent I made you greet?"
Gavinia went on greeting, and the baby, waking up, promptly took herside.
"D----n the thing!" said Corp.
"Your ain bairn!"
"I meant the glove!" he roared.
It was curiosity only that troubled Gavinia. A reader of romance, asyou may remember, she had encountered in the printed page a score ofladies who, on finding such parcels in their husbands' pockets, lefttheir homes at once and for ever, and she had never doubted but thatit was the only course to follow; such is the power of the writer offiction. But when the case was her own she was merely curious; suchare the limitations of the writer of fiction. That there was a womanin it she did not believe for a moment. This, of course, did notprevent her saying, with a sob, "Wha is the woman?"
With great earnestness Corp assured her that there was no woman. Heeven proved it: "Just listen to reason, Gavinia. If I was sich ablack as to be chief wi' ony woman, and she wanted to gie me apresent, weel, she might gie me a pair o' gloves, but one glove, whatuse would one glove be to me? I tell you, if a woman had the impidenceto gie me one glove, I would fling it in her face."
Nothing could have been clearer, and he had put it thus consideratelybecause when a woman, even the shrewdest of them, is excited (any manknows this), one has to explain matters to her as simply and patientlyas if she were a four-year-old; yet Gavinia affected to beunconvinced, and for several days she led Corp the life of a lodger inhis own house.
"Hands off that poor innocent," she said when he approached the baby.
If he reproved her, she replied meekly, "What can you expect frae awoman that doesna wear gloves?"
To the baby she said: "He despises you, my bonny, because you hae nogloves. Ay, that's what maks him turn up his nose at you. But yourmother is fond o' you, gloves or no gloves."
She told the baby the story of the glove daily, with many monstrousadditions.
When Corp came home from his work, she said that a poor, love-lornfemale had called with a boot for him, and a request that he shouldcarry it in the pocket of his Sabbath breeks.
Worst of all, she listened to what he said in the night. Corp had ahabit of talking in his sleep. He was usually taking tickets at suchtimes, and it had been her custom to stop him violently; but now shechanged her tactics: she encouraged him. "I would be lying in my bed,"he said to Tommy, "dreaming that a man had fallen into the Slugs, andinstead o' trying to save him I cried out, 'Tickets there, all ticketsready,' and first he hands me a glove and neist he hands me a boot andhavers o' that kind sich as onybody dreams. But in the middle o' mydream it comes ower me that I had better waken up to see whatGavinia's doing, and I open my een, and there she is, sitting up,hearkening avidly to my every word, and putting sly questions to meabout the glove."
"What glove?" Tommy asked coldly.
"The glove in silk paper."
"I never heard of it," said Tommy.
Corp sighed. "No," he said loyally, "neither did I"; and he went backto the station and sat gloomily in a wagon. He got no help from Tommy,not even when rumours of the incident at the Slugs became noisedabroad.
"A'body kens about the laddie now," he said.
"What laddie?" Tommy inquired.
"Him that fell into the Slugs."
"Ah, yes," Tommy said; "I have just been reading about it in thepaper. A plucky fellow, this Captain Ure who saved him. I wonder whohe is."
"I wonder!" Corp said with a groan.
"There was an Alexander Bett with him, according to the papers," Tommywent on. "Do you know any Bett?"
"It's no a Thrums name," Corp replied thankfully. "I just made it up."
"What do you mean?" Tommy asked blankly.
Corp sighed, and went back again to the wagon. He was particularlytruculent that evening when the six-o'clock train came in. "Tickets,there; look slippy wi' your tickets." His head bobbed up at the windowof another compartment. "Tick----" he began, and then he ducked.
The compartment contained a boy looking as scared as if he had justhad his face washed, and an old woman who was clutching a large linenbag as if expecting some scoundrel to appear through the floor andgrip it. With her other hand she held on to the boy, and being unusedto travel, they were both sitting very self-conscious, humble, anddefiant, like persons in church who have forgotten to bring theirBible. The general effect, however, was lost on Corp, for whom it wasenough that in one of them he recognized the boy of the Slugs. Hethought he had seen the old lady before, also, but he could not giveher a name. It was quite a relief to him to notice that she was notwearing gloves.
He heard her inquiring for one Alexander Bett, and being told thatthere was no such person in Thrums, "He's married on a woman of thename of Gavinia," said the old lady; and then they directed her to thehouse of the only Gavinia in the place. With dark forebodings Corpskulked after her. He remembered who she was now. She was the oldwoman with the nut-cracker face on whom he had cried in, more than ayear ago, to say that Gavinia was to have him. Her mud cottage hadbeen near the Slugs. Yes, and this was the boy who had been suppingporridge with her. Corp guessed rightly that the boy had rememberedhis unlucky visit. "I'm doomed!" Corp muttered to himself--pronouncingit in another way.
The woman, the boy, and the bag entered the house of Gavinia, andpresently she came out with them. She was looking very important andterrible. They went straight to Ailie's cottage, and Corp waswondering why, when he suddenly remembered that Tommy was to be thereat tea to-day.