Mr. McLean wrote a few reassuring¹ words to Miss Ailie, and having told Gavinia to give the note to her walked quietly out of the house; he was coming back after he had visited Miss Kitty's grave. Gavinia, however, did not knew this, and having delivered the note she returned dolefully to the kitchen to say to Tommy, "His letter maun have been as thraun as himsel', for as soon as she read it, down she plumped on her knees again."  
But Tommy was not in the kitchen; he was on the garden-wall watching Miss Ailie's persecutor³.
 
"Would it no be easier to watch him frae the gate?" suggested Gavinia, who had not the true detective instinct.
 
Tommy disregarded her womanlike question; a great change had come over him since she went upstairs; his bead⁴ now wobbled on his shoulders like a little balloon that wanted to cut its connection with earth and soar.
 
"What makes you look so queer?" cried the startled maid. "I thought you was converted."
 
"So I am," he shouted, "I'm more converted than ever, and yet I can do it just the same! Gavinia, I've found a wy!"
 
He was hurrying off on Mr. McLean's trail, but turned to say, "Gavinia, do you ken⁶ wha that man is?"
 
"Ower weel I ken," she answered, "it's Mr. McLean."
 
"McLean!" he echoed scornfully, "ay, I've heard that's one of the names he goes by, but hearken, and I'll tell you wha he really is. That's the scoundrel Stroke!"
 
No wonder Gavinia was flabbergasted. "Wha are you then?" she cried.
 
"I'm the Champion of Dames," he replied loftily, and before she had recovered from this he was stalking Mr. McLean in the cemetery⁷.
 
Miss Kitty sleeps in a beautiful hollow called the Basin, but the stone put up to her memory hardly marks the spot now, for with a score of others it was blown on its face by the wind that uprooted⁸ so many trees in the Den², and as it fell it lies. From the Basin to the rough road that clings like a belt to the round cemetery dyke⁹ is little more than a jump, and shortly after Miss Kitty's grave had been pointed¹⁰ out to him. Mr. McLean was seen standing¹¹ there hat in hand by a man on the road. This man was Dr. McQueen hobbling home from the Forest Muir; he did not hobble as a rule, but hobble everyone must on that misshapen brae, except Murdoch Gelatley, who, being short in one leg elsewhere, is here the only straight man. McQueen's sharp eyes, however, picked out not only the stranger but Tommy crouching¹² behind Haggart's stone, and him did the doctor's famous crook¹³ staff catch in the neck and whisk across the dyke.
 
"What man is that you're watching, you mysterious loon⁵?" McQueen demanded, curiously¹⁴; but of course Tommy would not divulge¹⁵ so big a secret. Now the one weakness of this large-hearted old bachelor (perhaps it is a professional virtue) was a devouring¹⁶ inquisitiveness¹⁷, and he would be troubled until he discovered who was the stranger standing in such obvious emotion by the side of an old grave. "Well, you must come back with me to the surgery, for I want you to run an errand for me," he said testily¹⁸, hoping to pump the boy by the way, but Tommy dived beneath his stick and escaped. This rasped the doctor's temper, which was unfortunate for Grizel, whom he caught presently peeping in at his surgery window. A dozen times of late she had wondered whether she should ask him to visit her mamma, and though the Painted Lady had screamed in terror at the proposal, being afraid of doctors, Grizel would have ventured ere now, had it not been for her mistaken conviction that he was a hard man, who would only flout¹⁹ her. It had once come to her ears that he had said a woman like her mamma could demoralize a whole town, with other harsh remarks, doubtless exaggerated in the repetition, and so he was the last man she dared think of going to for help, when he should have been the first. Nevertheless she had come now, and a soft word from him, such as he gave most readily to all who were in distress²⁰, would have drawn²¹ her pitiful tale from her, but he was in a grumpy mood, and had heard none of the rumors²² about her mother's being ill, which indeed were only common among the Monypenny children, and his first words checked her confidences. "What are you hanging about my open window for?" he cried sharply.
 
"Did you think I wanted to steal anything?" replied the indignant child.
 
"I won't say but what I had some such thait."
 
She turned to leave him, but he hooked her with his staff. "As you're here," he said, "will you go an errand for me?"
 
"No," she told him promptly²³; "I don't like you."
 
"There's no love lost between us," he replied, "for I think you're the dourest lassie I ever clapped eyes on, but there's no other litlin handy, so you must do as you are bid, and take this bottle to Ballingall's."
 
"Is it a medicine bottle?" she asked, with sudden interest.
 
"Yes, it's medicine. Do you know Ballingall's house in the West town end?"
 
"Ballingall who has the little school?"
 
"The same, but I doubt he'll keep school no longer."
 
"Is he dying?"
 
"I'm afraid there's no doubt of it. Will you go?"
 
"I should love to go," she cried.
 
"Love!" he echoed, looking at her with displeasure. "You can't love to go, so talk no more nonsense, but go, and I'll give you a bawbee."
 
"I don't want a bawbee," she said. "Do you think they will let me go in to see Ballingall?"
 
The doctor frowned. "What makes you want to see a dying man?" he demanded.
 
"I should just love to see him!" she exclaimed, and she added determinedly²⁴, "I won't give up the bottle until they let me in."
 
He thought her an unpleasant, morbid²⁵ girl, but "that is no affair of mine," he said shrugging his shoulders, and he gave her the bottle to deliver. Before taking it to Ballingall's, however, she committed a little crime. She bought an empty bottle at the 'Sosh, and poured into it some of the contents of the medicine bottle, which she then filled up with water. She dared try no other way now of getting medicine for her mother, and was too ignorant to know that there are different drugs for different ailments²⁶.
 
Grizel not only contrived²⁷ to get in to see Ballingan but stayed by his side for several hours, and when she came out it was night-time. On her way home she saw a light moving in the Den, where she had expected to play no more, and she could not prevent her legs from running joyously²⁸ toward it. So when Corp, rising out of the darkness, deftly²⁹ cut her throat, she was not so angry as she should have been.
 
"I'm so glad we are to play again, after all, Corp," she said; but he replied grandly, "Thou little kennest wha you're speaking to, my gentle jade³⁰."
 
He gave a curious hitch³¹ to his breeches, but it only puzzled her. "I wear gallowses no more," he explained, lifting his waistcoat to show that his braces³² now encircled him as a belt, but even then she did not understand. "Know, then," said Corp, sternly, "I am Ben the Boatswain."
 
"And am I not the Lady Griselda any more?" she asked.
 
"I'm no sure," he confessed; "but if you are, there's a price on your head."
 
"What is Tommy?"
 
"I dinna ken yet, but Gavinia says he telled her he's Champion of Damns. I kenna what Elspeth'll say to that."
 
Grizel was starting for the Lair³³, but he caught her by the skirt.
 
"Is he not at the Lair?" she inquired.
 
"We knowest it not," he answered gravely. "We're looking for't," he added with some awe³⁴; "we've been looking for't this three year." Then, in a louder voice, "If you can guide us to it, my pretty trifle, you'll be richly rewarded."
 
"But where is he? Don't you know?"
 
"Fine I knowest, but it wouldna be mous to tell you, for I kenna whether you be friend or foe³⁵. What's that you're carrying?"
 
"It is a—a medicine bottle."
 
"Gie me a sook!"
 
"No."
 
"Just one," begged Corp, "and I'll tell you where he is."
 
He got his way, and smacked³⁶ his lips unctuously³⁷.
 
"Now, where is Tommy?"
 
"Put your face close to mine," said Corp, and then he whispered hoarsely³⁸, "He's in a spleet new Lair, writing out b............