“It sounds unnatural.”

“It does, and so does what followed.  Do you know what straiking is?”

“Arraying the corpse for the coffin, laying it out, in short, is it not?”

“Ay, ay.  Well, it appears that Grizel had prigged with the women to let her be present at Ballingall’s straiking, and they had refused.”

“I should think so,” exclaimed McQueen, with a shudder.

“But that’s not all.  She came to me in her difficulty, and said that if I didna promise her this privilege she would nurse Ballingall no more.”

“Ugh!  That shows at least that pity for him had not influenced her.”

“No, she cared not a doit for him.  I question if she’s the kind that could care for anyone.  It’s plain by her thrawn look when you speak to her about her mother that she has no affection even for her.  However, there she was, prepared to leave Ballingall to his fate if I did not grant her request, and I had to yield to her.”

“You promised?”

“I did, sore against the grain, but I accept the responsibility.  You are pained, but you don’t know what a good nurse means to a doctor.”

“Well?”

“Well, he died after all, and the straiking is going on now.  You saw her go in.”

“I think you could have been excused for breaking your word and turning her out.”

“To tell the truth,” said the doctor, “I had the same idea when I saw her enter, and I tried to shoo her to the door, but she cried, ’You promised, you can’t break a promise!’ and the morbid brat that she is looked so horrified at the very notion of anybody’s breaking a promise that I slunk away as if she had right on her side.”

“No wonder the little monster is unpopular,” was McLean’s comment.  “The children hereabout seem to take to her as little as I do, for I had to drive away some who were molesting her.  I am sorry I interfered now.”

“I can tell you why they t’nead her,” replied the doctor, and he repeated the little that was known in Thrums of the Painted Lady, “And you see the womenfolk are mad because they can find out so little about her, where she got her money, for instance, and who are the ‘gentlemen’ that are said to visit her at Double Dykes.  They have tried many ways of drawing Grizel, from heckle biscuits and parlies to a slap in the face, but neither by coaxing nor squeezing will you get an egg out of a sweer hen, and so they found.  ‘The dour little limmer,’ they say, ’stalking about wi’ all her blinds down,’ and they are slow to interfere when their laddies call her names.  It’s a pity for herself that she’s not more communicative, for if she would just satisfy the women’s curiosity she would find them full of kindness.  A terrible thing, Mr. McLean, is curiosity.  The Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil, but we must ask Mr. Dishart if love of money is not a misprint for curiosity.  And you won’t find men boring their way into other folk’s concerns; it is a woman’s failing, essentially a woman’s.”  This was the doctor’s pet topic, and he pursued it until they had to part.  He had opened his door and was about to enter when he saw Gavinia passing on her way home from the Den.