The dogcart bumped between the trees of Caddam, flinging Gavin and the doctor at each other as a wheel rose on some beech-root or sank for a moment in a pool. I suppose the wood was a pretty sight that day, the pines only white where they had met the snow, as if the numbed¹ painter had left his work unfinished, the brittle² twigs³ snapping overhead, the water as black as tar⁴. But it matters little what the wood was like. Within a squirrel’s leap of it an old woman was standing⁵ at the door of a mud house listening for the approach of the trap that was to take her to the poorhouse. Can you think of the beauty of the day now?  
Nanny was not crying. She had redd up her house for the last time and put on her black merino. Her mouth was wide open while she listened. If you had addressed her you would have thought her polite and stupid. Look at her. A flabby-faced woman she is now, with a swollen⁶ body, and no one has heeded⁷ her much these thirty years. I can tell you something; it is almost droll⁸. Nanny Webster was once a gay flirt⁹, and in Airlie Square there is a weaver¹⁰ with an unsteady head who thought all the earth of her. His loom¹¹ has taken a foot from his stature¹³, and gone are Nanny’s raven¹⁴ locks on which he used to place his adoring hand. Down in Airlie Square he is weaving for his life, and here is Nanny, ripe for the poorhouse, and between them is the hill where they were lovers. That is all the story save that when Nanny heard the dogcart she screamed.
 
111
No neighbour was with her. If you think this hard, it is because you do not understand. Perhaps Nanny had never been very lovable except to one man, and him, it is said, she lost through her own vanity; but there was much in her to like. The neighbours, of whom there were two not a hundred yards away, would have been with her now but they feared to hurt her feelings. No heart opens to sympathy without letting in delicacy¹⁵, and these poor people knew that Nanny would not like them to see her being taken away. For a week they had been aware of what was coming, and they had been most kind to her, but that hideous¹⁶ word, the poorhouse, they had not uttered. Poorhouse is not to be spoken in Thrums, though it is nothing to tell a man that you see death in his face. Did Nanny think they knew where she was going? was a question they whispered to each other, and her suffering eyes cut scars on their hearts. So now that the hour had come they called their children into their houses and pulled down their blinds.
 
“If you would like to see her by yourself,” the doctor said eagerly to Gavin, as the horse drew up at Nanny’s gate, “I’ll wait with the horse. Not,” he added, hastily, “that I feel sorry for her. We are doing her a kindness.”
 
They dismounted together, however, and Nanny, who had run from the trap into the house, watched them from her window.
 
McQueen saw her and said glumly¹⁷, “I should have come alone, for if you pray she is sure to break down. Mr. Dishart, could you not pray cheerfully?”
 
“You don’t look very cheerful yourself,” Gavin said sadly.
 
“Nonsense,” answered the doctor. “I have no patience with this false sentiment. Stand still, Lightning, and be thankful you are not your master to-day.”
 
112
The door stood open, and Nanny was crouching¹⁸ against the opposite wall of the room, such a poor, dull kitchen, that you would have thought the furniture had still to be brought into it. The blanket and the piece of old carpet that was Nanny’s coverlet were already packed in her box. The plate rack was empty. Only the round table and the two chairs, and the stools and some pans were being left behind.
 
“Well, Nanny,” the doctor said, trying to bluster¹⁹, “I have come, and you see Mr. Dishart is with me.”
 
Nanny rose bravely. She knew the doctor was good to her, and she wanted to thank him. I have not seen a great deal of the world myself, but often the sweet politeness of the aged²⁰ poor has struck me as beautiful. Nanny dropped a curtesy, an ungainly one maybe, but it was an old woman giving the best she had.
 
“Thank you kindly²¹, sirs,” she said; and then two pairs of eyes dropped before hers.
 
“Please to take a chair,” she added timidly. It is strange to know that at that awful moment, for let none tell me it was less than awful, the old woman was the one who could speak.
 
Both men sat down, for they would have hurt Nanny by remaining standing. Some ministers would have known the right thing to say to her, but Gavin dared not let himself speak. I have again to remind you that he was only one-and-twenty.
 
“I’m drouthy, Nanny,” the doctor said, to give her something to do, “and I would be obliged for a drink of water.”
 
Nanny hastened to the pan that stood behind her door, but stopped before she reached it.
 
“It’s toom,” she said. “I—I didna think I needed to fill it this morning.” She caught the doctor’s eye, and could only half restrain a sob²². “I couldna help that,” she said, apologetically. “I’m richt angry at myself for ............