A learned man says in a book, otherwise beautiful with truth, that
villages are family groups. To him Thrums would only be a village,
though town is the word we have ever used, and this is not true of it.
Doubtless we have interests in common, from which a place so near (but
the road is heavy) as Tilliedrum is shut out, and we have an
individuality of our own too, as if, like our red houses, we came from
a quarry that supplies no other place. But we are not one family. In
the old days, those of us who were of the Tenements seldom wandered to
the Croft head, and if we did go there we saw men to whom we could not
always give a name. To flit from the Tanage brae to Haggart's road was
to change one's friends. A kirk-wynd weaver might kill his swine and
Tillyloss not know of it until boys ran westward hitting each other
with the bladders. Only the voice of the dulsemen could be heard all
over Thrums at once. Thus even in a small place but a few outstanding
persons are known to everybody.
In eight days Gavin's figure was more familiar in Thrums than many
that had grown bent in it. He had already been twice to the cemetery,
for a minister only reaches his new charge in time to attend a
funeral. Though short of stature he cast a great shadow. He was so
full of his duties, Jean said, that though he pulled to the door as he
left the manse, he had passed the currant bushes before it snecked. He
darted through courts, and invented ways into awkward houses. If you
did not look up quickly he was round the corner. His visiting
exhausted him only less than his zeal in the pulpit, from which,
according to report, he staggered damp with perspiration to the
vestry, where Hendry Munn wrung him like a wet cloth. A deaf lady,
celebrated for giving out her washing, compelled him to hold her
trumpet until she had peered into all his crannies, with the Shorter
Catechism for a lantern. Janet Dundas told him, in answer to his
knock, that she could not abide him, but she changed her mind when he
said her garden was quite a show. The wives who expected a visit
scrubbed their floors for him, cleaned out their presses for him, put
diamond socks on their bairns for him, rubbed their hearthstones blue
for him, and even tidied up the garret for him, and triumphed over the
neighbours whose houses he passed by. For Gavin blundered occasionally
by inadvertence, as when he gave dear old Betty Davie occasion to say
bitterly--
"Ou ay, you can sail by my door and gang to Easie's, but I'm thinking
you would stop at mine too if I had a brass handle on't."
So passed the first four weeks, and then came the fateful night of the
seventeenth of October, and with it the strange woman. Family worship
at the manse was over and Gavin was talking to his mother, who never
crossed the threshold save to go to church (though her activity at
home was among the marvels Jean sometimes slipped down to the
Tenements to announce), when Wearyworld the policeman came to the door
"with Rob Dow's compliments, and if you're no wi' me by ten o'clock
I'm to break out again." Gavin knew what this meant, and at once set
off for Rob's.
"You'll let me gang a bit wi' you," the policeman entreated, "for till
Rob sent me on this errand not a soul has spoken to me the day; ay,
mony a ane hae I spoken to, but not a man, woman, nor bairn would
fling me a word."
"I often meant to ask you," Gavin said as they went along the
Tenements, which smelled at that hour of roasted potatoes, "why you
are so unpopular."
"It's because I'm police. I'm the first ane that has ever been in
Thrums, and the very folk that appointed me at a crown a week looks
upon me as a disgraced man for accepting. It's Gospel that my ain wife
is short wi' me when I've on my uniform, though weel she kens that I
would rather hae stuck to the loom if I hadna ha'en sic a queer richt
leg. Nobody feels the shame o' my position as I do mysel', but this is
a town without pity."
"It should be a consolation to you that you are discharging useful
duties."
"But I'm no. I'm doing harm. There's Charles Dickson says that the
very sicht o' my uniform rouses his dander so muckle that it makes him
break windows, though a peaceably-disposed man till I was appointed.
And what's the use o' their haeing a policeman when they winna come to
the lock-up after I lay hands on them?"
"Do they say they won't come?"
"Say? Catch them saying onything! They just gie me a wap into the
gutters. If they would speak I wouldna complain, for I'm nat'rally the
sociablest man in Thrums."
"Rob, however, had spoken to you."
"Because he had need o' me. That was ay Rob's way, converted or no
converted. When he was blind drunk he would order me to see him safe
hame, but would he crack wi' me? Na, na."
Wearyworld, who was so called because of his forlorn way of muttering,
"It's a weary warld, and nobody bides in't," as he went his melancholy
rounds, sighed like one about to cry, and Gavin changed the subject.
"Is the watch for the soldiers still kept up?" he asked.
"It is, but the watchers winna let me in aside them. I'll let you see
that for yoursel' at the head o' the Roods, for they watch there in
the auld windmill."
Most of the Thrums lights were already out, and that in the windmill
disappeared as footsteps were heard.
"You're desperate characters," the policeman cried, but got no answer.
He changed his tactics.
"A fine nicht for the time o' year," he cried. No answer.
"But I wouldna wonder," he shouted, "though we had rain afore
morning." No answer.
"Surely you could gie me a word frae ahint the door. You're doing an
onlawful thing, but I dinna ken wha you are."
"You'll swear to that?" some one asked gruffly.
"I swear to it, Peter."
Wearyworld tried another six remarks in vain.
"Ay," he said to the minister, "that's what it is to be an onpopular
man. And now I'll hae to turn back, for the very anes that winna let
me join them would be the first to complain if I gaed out o' bounds."
Gavin found Dow at New Zealand, a hamlet of mud houses, whose tenants
could be seen on any Sabbath morning washing themselves in the burn
that trickled hard by. Rob's son, Micah, was asleep at the door, but
he brightened when he saw who was shaking him.
"My father put me out," he explained, "because he's daft for the
drink, and was fleid he would curse me. He hasna cursed me," Micah
added, proudly, "for an aught days come Sabbath. Hearken to him at his
loom. He daurna take his feet off the treadles for fear o' running
straucht to the drink."
Gavin went in. The loom, and two stools, the one four-footed and the
other a buffet, were Rob's most conspicuous furniture. A shaving-strap
hung on the wall. The fire was out, but the trunk of a tree, charred
at one end, showed how he heated his house. He made a fire of peat,
and on it placed one end of a tree trunk that might be six feet long.
As the tree burned away it was pushed further into the fireplace, and
a roaring fire could always be got by kicking pieces of the
smouldering wood and blowing them into flame with the bellows. When
Rob saw the minister he groaned relief and left his loom. He had been
weaving, his teeth clenched, his eyes on fire, for seven hours.
"I wasna fleid," little Micah said to the neighbours afterwards, "to
gang in wi' the minister. He's a fine man that. He didna ca' my father
names. Na, he said, 'You're a brave fellow, Rob,' and he took my
father's hand, he did. My father was shaking after his fecht wi' the
drink, and, says he, 'Mr. Dishart,' he says, 'if you'll let me break
out nows and nans, I could bide straucht atween times, but I canna
keep sober if I hinna a drink to look forrit to.' Ay, my father
prigged sair to get one fou day in the month, and he said, 'Syne if I
die sudden, there's thirty chances to one that I gang to heaven, so
it's worth risking.' But Mr. Dishart wouldna hear o't, and he cries,
'No, by God,' he cries, 'we'll wrestle wi' the devil till we throttle
him,' and down him and my father gaed on their knees.
"The minister prayed a lang time till my father said his hunger for
the drink was gone, 'but', he says, 'it swells up in me o' a sudden
aye, and it may be back afore you're hame.' 'Then come to me at once,'
says Mr. Dishart; but my father says, 'Na, for it would haul me into
the public-house as if it had me at the end o' a rope, but I'll send
the laddie.'
"You saw my father crying the minister back? It was to gie him twa
pound, and, says my father, 'God helping me,' he says, 'I'll droon
mysel in the dam rather than let the drink master me, but in case it
should get haud o' me and I should die drunk, it would be a michty
gratification to me to ken that you had the siller to bury me
respectable without ony help frae the poor's rates.' The minister
wasna for taking it at first, but he took it when he saw how earnest
my father was. Ay, he's a noble man. After he gaed awa my father made
me learn the names o' the apostles frae Luke sixth, and he says to me,
'Miss out Bartholomew,' he says, 'for he did little, and put Gavin
Dishart in his place.'"
Feeling as old as he sometimes tried to look, Gavin turned homeward.
Margaret was already listening for him. You may be sure she knew his
step. I think our steps vary as much as the human face. My bookshelves
were made by a blind man who could identify by their steps nearly all
who passed his window. Yet he has admitted to me that he could not
tell wherein my steps differed from others; and this I believe, though
rejecting his boast that he could distinguish a minister's step from a
doctor's, and even tell to which denomination the minister belonged.
I have sometimes asked myself what would have been Gavin's future had
he gone straight home that night from Dow's. He would doubtless have
seen the Egyptian before morning broke, but she would not have come
upon him like a witch. There are, I dare say, many lovers who would
never have been drawn to each other had they met for the first time,
as, say, they met the second time. But such dreaming is to no purpose.
Gavin met Sanders Webster, the mole-catcher, and was persuaded by him
to go home by Caddam Wood.
Gavin took the path to Caddam, because Sanders told him the Wild
Lindsays were there, a gypsy family that threatened the farmers by day
and danced devilishly, it was said, at night. The little minister knew
them by repute as a race of giants, and that not many persons would
have cared to face them alone at midnight; but he was feeling as one
wound up to heavy duties, and meant to admonish them severely.
Sanders, an old man who lived with his sister Nanny on the edge of the
wood, went with him, and for a time both were silent. But Sanders had
something to say.
"Was you ever at the Spittal, Mr. Dishart?" he asked.
"Lord Rintoul's house at the top of Glen Quharity? No."
"Hae you ever looked on a lord?"
"No."
"Or on an auld lord's young leddyship? I have."
"What is she?"
"You surely ken that Rintoul's auld, and is to be married on a young
leddyship. She's no' a leddyship yet, but they're to be married soon,
so I may say I've seen a leddyship. Ay, an impressive sicht. It was
yestreen."
"Is there a great difference in their ages?"
"As muckle as atween auld Peter Spens and his wife, wha was saxteen
when he was saxty, and she was playing at dumps in the street when her
man was waiting for her to make his porridge. Ay, sic a differ doesna
suit wi' common folk, but of course earls can please themsels.
Rintoul's so fond o' the leddyship 'at is to be, that when she was at
the school in Edinbury he wrote to her ilka day. Kaytherine Crummie
telled me that, and she says aince you're used to it, writing letters
is as easy as skinning moles. I dinna ken what they can write sic a
heap about, but I daur say he gies her his views on the Chartist
agitation and the potato disease, and she'll write back about the
romantic sichts o' Edinbury and the sermons o' the grand preachers she
hears. Sal, though, thae grand folk has no religion to speak o', for
they're a' English kirk. You're no' speiring what her leddyship said
to me?"
"What did she say?"
"Weel, you see, there was a dancing ball on, and Kaytherine Crummie
took me to a window whaur I could stand on a flower-pot and watch the
critturs whirling round in the ball like teetotums. What's mair, she
pointed out the leddyship that's to be to me, and I just glowered at
her, for thinks I, 'Take your fill, Sanders, and whaur there's lords
and leddyships, dinna waste a minute on colonels and honourable misses
and sic like dirt.' Ay, but what wi' my een blinking at the blaze o'
candles, I lost sicht o' her till all at aince somebody says at my
lug, 'Well, my man, and who is the prettiest lady in the room?' Mr.
Dishart, it was her leddyship. She looked like a star."
"And what did you do?"
"The first thing I did was to fall aff the flower-pot; but syne I came
to, and says I, wi' a polite smirk, 'I'm thinking your leddyship,'
says I, 'as you're the bonniest yourself.'"
"I see you are a cute man, Sanders."
"Ay, but that's no' a'. She lauched in a pleased way and tapped me wi'
her fan, and says she, 'Why do you think me the prettiest?' I dinna
deny but what that staggered me, but I thocht a minute, and took a
look at the other dancers again, and syne I says, michty sly like,
'The other leddies,' I says, 'has sic sma' feet.'"
Sanders stopped here and looked doubtingly at Gavin.
"I canna make up my mind," he said, "whether she liked that, for she
rapped my knuckles wi' her fan fell sair, and aff she gaed. Ay, I
consulted Tammas Haggart about it, and he says, 'The flirty crittur,'
he says. What would you say, Mr. Dishart?"
Gavin managed to escape without giving an answer, for here their roads
separated. He did not find the Wild Lindsays, however. Children of
whim, of prodigious strength while in the open, but destined to wither
quickly in the hot air of towns, they had gone from Caddam, leaving
nothing of themselves behind but a black mark burned by their fires
into the ground. Thus they branded the earth through many counties
until some hour when the spirit of wandering again fell on them, and
they forsook their hearths with as little compunction as the bird
leaves its nest.
Gavin had walked quickly, and he now stood silently in the wood, his
hat in his hand. In the moonlight the grass seemed tipped with hoar
frost. Most of the beeches were already bare, but the shoots,
clustering round them, like children at their mother's skirts, still
retained their leaves red and brown. Among the pines these leaves were
as incongruous as a wedding-dress at a funeral. Gavin was standing on
grass, but there were patches of heather within sight, and broom, and
the leaf of the blaeberry. Where the beeches had drawn up the earth
with them as they grew, their roots ran this way and that, slippery to
the feet and looking like disinterred bones. A squirrel appeared
suddenly on the charred ground, looked doubtfully at Gavin to see if
he was growing there, and then glided up a tree, where it sat eyeing
him, and forgetting to conceal its shadow. Caddam was very still. At
long intervals came from far away the whack of an axe on wood. Gavin
was in a world by himself, and this might be some one breaking into
it.
The mystery of woods by moonlight thrilled the little minister. His
eyes rested on the shining roots, and he remembered what had been told
him of the legend of Caddam, how once on a time it was a mighty wood,
and a maiden most beautiful stood on its confines, panting and afraid,
for a wicked man pursued her; how he drew near, and she ran a little
way into the wood, and he followed her, and she still ran, and still
he followed, until both were for ever lost, and the bones of her
pursuer lie beneath a beech, but the lady may still be heard singing
in the woods if the night be fine, for then she is a glad spirit, but
weeping when there is wild wind, for then she is but a mortal seeking
a way out of the wood.
[Illustration: IN CADDAM WOOD.]
The squirrel slid down the fir and was gone. The axe's blows
ceased. Nothing that moved was in sight. The wind that has its nest in
trees was circling around with many voices, that never rose above a
whisper, and were often but the echo of a sigh.
Gavin was in the Caddam of past days, where the beautiful maiden
wanders ever, waiting for him who is so pure that he may find her. He
will wander over the tree-tops looking for her, with the moon for his
lamp, and some night he will hear her singing. The little minister
drew a deep breath, and his foot snapped a brittle twig. Then he
remembered who and where he was, and stooped to pick up his staff. But
he did not pick it up, for as his fingers were closing on it the lady
began to sing.
For perhaps a minute Gavin stood stock still, like an intruder. Then
he ran towards the singing, which seemed to come from Windyghoul, a
straight road through Caddam that farmers use in summer, but leave in
the back end of the year to leaves and pools. In Windyghoul there is
either no wind or so much that it rushes down the sieve like an army,
entering with a shriek of terror, and escaping with a derisive howl.
The moon was crossing the avenue. But Gavin only saw the singer.
She was still fifty yards away, sometimes singing gleefully, and again
letting her body sway lightly as she came dancing up Windyghoul. Soon
she was within a few feet of the little minister, to whom singing,
except when out of tune, was a suspicious thing, and dancing a device
of the devil. His arm went out wrathfully, and his intention was to
pronounce sentence on this woman.
But she passed, unconscious of his presence, and he had not moved nor
spoken. Though really of the average height, she was a little thing to
the eyes of Gavin, who always felt tall and stout except when he
looked down. The grace of her swaying figure was a new thing in the
world to him. Only while she passed did he see her as a gleam of
colour, a gypsy elf poorly clad, her bare feet flashing beneath a
short green skirt, a twig of rowan berries stuck carelessly into her
black hair. Her face was pale. She had an angel's loveliness. Gavin
shook.
Still she danced onwards, but she was very human, for when she came to
muddy water she let her feet linger in it, and flung up her arms,
dancing more wantonly than before. A diamond on her finger shot a
thread of fire over the pool. Undoubtedly she was the devil.
Gavin leaped into the avenue, and she heard him and looked behind. He
tried to cry "Woman!" sternly, but lost the word, for now she saw him,
and laughed with her shoulders, and beckoned to him, so that he shook
his fist at her. She tripped on, but often turning her head beckoned
and mocked him, and he forgot his dignity and his pulpit and all other
things, and ran after her. Up Windyghoul did he pursue her, and it was
well that the precentor was not there to see. She reached the mouth of
the avenue, and kissing her hand to Gavin, so that the ring gleamed
again, was gone.
The minister's one thought was to find her, but he searched in vain.
She might be crossing the hill on her way to Thrums, or perhaps she
was still laughing at him from behind a tree. After a longer time than
he was aware of, Gavin realised that his boots were chirping and his
trousers streaked with mud. Then he abandoned the search and hastened
homewards in a rage.
[Illustration: IN WINDYGHOUL.]
From the hill to the manse the nearest way is down two fields, and the
little minister descended them rapidly. Thrums, which is red in
daylight, was grey and still as the cemetery. He had glimpses of
several of its deserted streets. To the south the watch-light showed
brightly, but no other was visible. So it seemed to Gavin, and
then--suddenly--he lost the power to move. He had heard the horn.
Thrice it sounded, and thrice it struck him to the heart. He looked
again and saw a shadow stealing along the Tenements, then another,
then half-a-dozen. He remembered Mr. Carfrae's words, "If you ever
hear that horn, I implore you to hasten to the square," and in another
minute he had reached the Tenements.
Now again he saw the gypsy. She ran past him, half-a-score of men,
armed with staves and pikes, at her heels. At first he thought they
were chasing her, but they were following her as a leader. Her eyes
sparkled as she waved them to the square with her arms.
"The soldiers, the soldiers!" was the universal cry.
"Who is that woman?" demanded Gavin, catching hold of a frightened old
man.
"Curse the Egyptian limmer," the man answered, "she's egging my laddie
on to fecht."
"Bless her rather," the son cried, "for warning us that the sojers is
coming. Put your ear to the ground, Mr. Dishart, and you'll hear the
dirl o' their feet."
The young man rushed away to the square, flinging his father from him.
Gavin followed. As he turned into the school wynd, the town drum began
to beat, windows were thrown open, and sullen men ran out of closes
where women were screaming and trying to hold them back. At the foot
of the wynd Gavin passed Sanders Webster.
"Mr. Dishart," the mole-catcher cried, "hae you seen that Egyptian?
May I be struck dead if it's no' her little leddyship."
But Gavin did not hear him.
Chapter Five.
A WARLIKE CHAPTER, CULMINATING IN THE FLOUTING OF THE MINISTER BY THE
WOMAN.
"Mr. Dishart!"
Jean had clutched at Gavin in Bank Street. Her hair was streaming, and
her wrapper but half buttoned.
"Oh, Mr. Dishart, look at the mistress! I couldna keep her in the
manse."
Gavin saw his mother beside him, bare-headed, trembling.
"How could I sit still, Gavin, and the town full o' the skirls of
women and bairns? Oh, Gavin, what can I do for them? They will suffer
most this night."
As Gavin took her hand he knew that Margaret felt for the people more
than he.
"But you must go home, mother," he said, "and leave me to do my duty.
I will take you myself if you will not go with Jean. Be careful of
her, Jean."
"Ay, will I," Jean answered, then burst into tears. "Mr. Dishart," she
cried, "if they take my father they'd best take my mither too."
The two women went back to the manse, where Jean relit the fire,
having nothing else to do, and boiled the kettle, while Margaret
wandered in anguish from room to room.
[Illustration: THE WARNING.]
Men nearly naked ran past Gavin, seeking to escape from Thrums by the
fields he had descended. When he shouted to them they only ran faster.
A Tillyloss weaver whom he tried to stop struck him savagely and sped
past to the square. In Bank Street, which was full of people at one
moment and empty the next, the minister stumbled over old Charles
Yuill.
"Take me and welcome," Yuill cried, mistaking Gavin for the enemy. He
had only one arm through the sleeve of his jacket, and his feet were
bare.
"I am Mr. Dishart. Are the soldiers already in the square, Yuill?"
"They'll be there in a minute."
The man was so weak that Gavin had to hold him.
"Be a man, Charles. You have nothing to fear. It is not such as you
the soldiers have come for. If need be, I can swear that you had not
the strength, even if you had the will, to join in the weavers'
riot."
"For Godsake, Mr. Dishart," Yuill cried, his hands chattering on
Gavin's coat, "dinna swear that. My laddie was in the thick o' the
riot; and if he's ta'en there's the poor's-house gaping for Kitty and
me, for I couldna weave half a web a week. If there's a warrant agin
onybody o' the name of Yuill, swear it's me; swear I'm a desperate
character, swear I'm michty strong for all I look palsied; and if when
they take me, my courage breaks down, swear the mair, swear I
confessed my guilt to you on the Book."
As Yuill spoke the quick rub-a-dub of a drum was heard.
"The soldiers!" Gavin let go his hold of the old man, who hastened
away to give himself up.
"That's no the sojers," said a woman; "it's the folk gathering in the
square. This'll be a watery Sabbath in Thrums."
"Rob Dow," shouted Gavin, as Dow flung past with a scythe in his hand,
"lay down that scythe."
"To hell wi' religion!" Rob retorted, fiercely; "it spoils a' thing."
"Lay down that scythe; I command you."
Rob stopped undecidedly, then cast the scythe from him, but its
rattle on the stones was more than he could bear.
"I winna," he cried, and, picking it up, ran to the square.
An upper window in Bank Street opened, and Dr. McQueen put out his
head. He was smoking as usual.
"Mr. Dishart," he said, "you will return home at once if you are a
wise man; or, better still, come in here. You can do nothing with
these people to-night."
"I can stop their fighting."
"You will only make black blood between them and you."
"Dinna heed him, Mr. Dishart," cried some women.
"You had better heed him," cried a man.
"I will not desert my people," Gavin said.
"Listen, then, to my prescription," the doctor replied. "Drive that
gypsy lassie out of the town before the soldiers reach it. She is
firing the men to a red-heat through sheer devilry."
"She brocht the news, or we would have been nipped in our beds," some
people cried.
"Does any one know who she is?" Gavin demanded, but all shook their
heads. The Egyptian, as they called her, had never been seen in these
parts before.
"Has any other person seen the soldiers?" he asked. "Perhaps this is a
false alarm."
"Several have seen them within the last few minutes," the doctor
answered. "They came from Tilliedrum, and were advancing on us from
the south, but when they heard that we had got the alarm they stopped
at the top of the brae, near T'nowhead's farm. Man, you would take
these things more coolly if you smoked."
"Show me this woman," Gavin said sternly to those who had been
listening. Then a stream of people carried him into the square.
The square has altered little, even in these days of enterprise,
when Tillyloss has become Newton Bank, and the Craft Head Croft
Terrace, with enamelled labels on them for the guidance of slow
people, who forget their address and have to run to the end of the
street and look up every time they write a letter. The stones on
which the butter-wives sat have disappeared, and with them the clay
walls and the outside stairs. Gone, too, is the stair of the
town-house, from the top of which the drummer roared the gossip of
the week on Sabbaths to country folk, to the scandal of all who
knew that the proper thing on that day is to keep your blinds down;
but the town-house itself, round and red, still makes exit to the
south troublesome. Wherever streets meet the square there is a
house in the centre of them, and thus the heart of Thrums is a
box, in which the stranger finds himself suddenly, wondering at
first how he is to get out, and presently how he got in.
To Gavin, who never before had seen a score of people in the square at
once, here was a sight strange and terrible. Andrew Struthers, an old
soldier, stood on the outside stair of the town-house, shouting words
of command to some fifty weavers, many of them scantily clad, but all
armed with pikes and poles. Most were known to the little minister,
but they wore faces that were new to him. Newcomers joined the body
every moment. If the drill was clumsy the men were fierce. Hundreds of
people gathered around, some screaming, some shaking their fists at
the old soldier, many trying to pluck their relatives out of danger.
Gavin could not see the Egyptian. Women and old men, fighting for the
possession of his ear, implored him to disperse the armed band. He ran
up the town-house stair, and in a moment it had become a pulpit.
"Dinna dare to interfere, Mr. Dishart," Struthers said savagely.
"Andrew Struthers," said Gavin solemnly, "in the name of God I order
you to leave me alone. If you don't," he added ferociously, "I'll
fling you over the stair."
"Dinna heed him, Andrew," some one shouted, and another cried, "He
canna understand our sufferings; he has dinner ilka day."
Struthers faltered, however, and Gavin cast his eye over the armed
men.
"Rob Dow," he said, "William Carmichael, Thomas Whamond, William Munn,
Alexander Hobart, Henders Haggart, step forward."
These were Auld Lichts, and when they found that the minister would
not take his eyes off them, they obeyed, all save Rob Dow.
"Never mind him, Rob," said the atheist, Cruickshanks, "it's better
playing cards in hell than singing psalms in heaven."
"Joseph Cruickshanks," responded Gavin grimly, "you will find no cards
down there."
Then Rob also came to the foot of the stair. There was some angry
muttering from the crowd, and young Charles Yuill exclaimed, "Curse
you, would you lord it ower us on week-days as weel as on Sabbaths?"
"Lay down your weapons," Gavin said to the six men.
They looked at each other. Hobart slipped his pike behind his back.
"I hae no weapon," he said slily.
"Let me hae my fling this nicht," Dow entreated, "and I'll promise to
bide sober for a twelvemonth."
"Oh, Rob, Rob!" the minister said bitterly, "are you the man I prayed
with a few hours ago?"
The scythe fell from Rob's hands.
"Down wi' your pikes," he roared to his companions, "or I'll brain you
wi' them."
"Ay, lay them down," the precentor whispered, "but keep your feet on
them."
Then the minister, who was shaking with excitement, though he did not
know it, stretched forth his arms for silence, and it came so suddenly
as to frighten the people in the neighboring streets.
"If he prays we're done for," cried young Charles Yuill, but even in
that hour many of the people were unbonneted.
"Oh, Thou who art the Lord of hosts," Gavin prayed, "we are in Thy
hands this night. These are Thy people, and they have sinned; but Thou
art a merciful God, and they were sore tried, and knew not what they
did. To Thee, our God, we turn for deliverance, for without Thee we
are lost."
The little minister's prayer was heard all round the square, and many
weapons were dropped as an Amen to it.
"If you fight," cried Gavin, brightening as he heard the clatter of
the iron on the stones, "your wives and children may be shot in the
streets. These soldiers have come for a dozen of you; will you be
benefited if they take away a hundred?"
"Oh, hearken to him," cried many women.
"I winna," answered a man, "for I'm ane o' the dozen. Whaur's the
Egyptian?"
"Here."
Gavin saw the crowd open, and the woman of Windyghoul come out of it,
and, while he should have denounced her, he only blinked, for once
more her loveliness struck him full in the eyes. She was beside him on
the stair before he became a minister again.
"How dare you, woman?" he cried; but she flung a rowan berry at him.
"If I were a man," she exclaimed, addressing the people, "I wouldna
let myself be catched like a mouse in a trap."
"We winna," some answered.
"What kind o' women are you," cried the Egyptian, her face gleaming as
she turned to her own sex, "that bid your men folk gang to gaol when a
bold front would lead them to safety? Do you want to be husbandless
and hameless?"
"Disperse, I command you!" cried Gavin. "This abandoned woman is
inciting you to riot."
"Dinna heed this little man," the Egyptian retorted.
It is curious to know that even at that anxious moment Gavin winced
because she called him little.
"She has the face of a mischief-maker," he shouted, "and her words are
evil."
"You men and women o' Thrums," she responded, "ken that I wish you
weel by the service I hae done you this nicht. Wha telled you the
sojers was coming?"
"It was you; it was you!"
"Ay, and mony a mile I ran to bring the news. Listen, and I'll tell
you mair."
"She has a false tongue," Gavin cried; "listen not to the brazen
woman."
"What I have to tell," she said, "is as true as what I've telled
already, and how true that is you a' ken. You're wondering how the
sojers has come to a stop at the tap o' the brae instead o' marching
on the town. Here's the reason. They agreed to march straucht to the
square if the alarm wasna given, but if it was they were to break into
small bodies and surround the town so that you couldna get out. That's
what they're doing now."
At this the screams were redoubled, and many men lifted the weapons
they had dropped.
"Believe her not," cried Gavin. "How could a wandering gypsy know all
this?"
"Ay, how can you ken?" some demanded.
"It's enough that I do ken," the Egyptian answered. "And this mair I
ken, that the captain of the soldiers is confident he'll nab every one
o' you that's wanted unless you do one thing."
"What is 't?"
[Illustration: THE SOLDIERS.]
"If you a' run different ways you're lost, but if you keep thegither
you'll be able to force a road into the country, whaur you can
scatter. That's what he's fleid you'll do."
"Then it's what we will do."
"It is what you will not do," Gavin said passionately. "The truth is
not in this wicked woman."
But scarcely had he spoken when he knew that startling news had
reached the square. A murmur arose on the skirts of the mob, and swept
with the roar of the sea towards the town-house. A detachment of the
soldiers were marching down the Roods from the north.
"There's some coming frae the east-town end," was the next intelligence;
"and they've gripped Sanders Webster, and auld Charles Yuill has
given himsel' up."
"You see, you see," the gypsy said, flashing triumph at Gavin.
"Lay down your weapons," Gavin cried, but his power over the people
had gone.
"The Egyptian spoke true," they shouted; "dinna heed the minister."
Gavin tried to seize the gypsy by the shoulders, but she slipped past
him down the stair, and crying "Follow me!" ran round the town-house
and down the brae.
"Woman!" he shouted after her, but she only waved her arms scornfully.
The people followed her, many of the men still grasping their weapons,
but all in disorder. Within a minute after Gavin saw the gleam of the
ring on her finger, as she waved her hands, he and Dow were alone in
the square.
"She's an awfu' woman that," Rob said. "I saw her lauching."
Gavin ground his teeth.
"Rob Dow," he said, slowly, "if I had not found Christ I would have
throttled that woman. You saw how she flouted me?"
Chapter Six.