“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 return, when she may rejoin him.  At least we said that to her to comfort her.”

“You want me to go with you?”

“Yes, though I warn you it may be a distressing scene; indeed, the truth is that I am loth to face Nanny alone to-day.  Mr. Duthie should have accompanied me, for the Websters are Established Kirk; ay, and so he would if Rashie-bog had not been bearing.  A terrible snare this curling, Mr. Dishart”—­here the doctor sighed—­“I have known Mr. Duthie wait until midnight struck on Sabbath and then be off to Rashie-bog with a torch.”

“I will go with you,” Gavin said, putting on his coat.

“Jump in then.  You won’t smoke?  I never see a respectable man not smoking, sir, but I feel indignant with him for such sheer waste of time.”