But, often as he left her door, never did it close behind him until with her own eyes Mistress Croale had seen Gibbie dart like an imp out of the court--to take him in charge, and, all the weary way home, hover, not very like a guardian angel, but not the less one in truth, around the unstable equilibrium of his father's tall and swaying form.

And thereupon commenced a series of marvellous gymnastics on the part of wee Gibbie.

Imagine a small boy with a gigantic top, which, six times his own size, he keeps erect on its peg, not by whipping it round, but by running round it himself, unfailingly applying, at the very spot and at the very moment, the precise measure of impact necessary to counterbalance its perpetual tendency to fall in one direction or another, so that the two have all the air of a single invention--such an invention as one might meet with in an ancient clock, contrived when men had time to mingle play with earnest--and you will have in your mind's eye a real likeness of Sir George attended, any midnight in the week, by his son Gilbert.

Home the big one staggered, reeled, gyrated, and tumbled; round and round him went the little one, now behind, now before, now on this side, now on that, his feet never more than touching the ground but dancing about like those of a prize-fighter, his little arms up and his hands well forward, like flying buttresses.

And such indeed they were--buttresses which flew and flew all about a universally leaning tower.