was up, and importunate; he growled and gave now and then a sharp
impatient yelp; he would have liked to have done something to that man.
But James had him firm, and gave him a GLOWER from time to time, and an
intimation of a possible kick;--all the better for James, it kept his
eye and his mind off Ailie.

It is over: she is dressed, steps gently and decently down from the
table, looks for James; then, turning to the surgeon and the students,
she courtesies, and in a low, clear voice begs their pardon if she has
behaved ill. The students--all of us--wept like children; the surgeon
happed her up carefully, and, resting on James and me, Ailie went to her
room, Rab following. We put her to bed. James took off his heavy shoes,
crammed with tackets, heel-capt and toe-capt, and put them carefully
under the table, saying, "Maister John, I'm for nane o' yer strynge
nurse bodies for Ailie. I'll be her nurse, and I'll gang aboot on my
stockin' soles as canny as pussy." And so he did; and handy and clever
and swift and tender as any woman was that horny-handed, snell,
peremptory little man. Everything she got he gave her: he seldom slept;
and often I saw his small shrewd eyes out of the darkness, fixed on her.
As before, they spoke little.

Rab behaved well, never moving, showing us how meek and gentle he could
be, and occasionally, in his sleep, letting us know that he was
demolishing some adversary. He took a walk with me every day, generally
to the Candlemaker Row; but he was sombre and mild, declined doing
battle, though some fit cases offered, and indeed submitted to sundry
indignities, and was always very ready to turn, and came faster back,
and trotted up the stair with much lightness, and went straight to that
door.