It would be coming on for a quarter-past nine, and a misty night, when
I reached the school-house, and I was so weary of mind and body that I
sat down without taking off my bonnet. I had left the door open, and I
remember listlessly watching the wind making a target of my candle,
but never taking a sufficiently big breath to do more than frighten
it. From this lethargy I was roused by the sound of wheels.
In the daytime our glen road leads to many parts, but in the night
only to the doctor's. Then the gallop of a horse makes farmers start
up in bed and cry, "Who's ill?" I went to my door and listened to the
trap coming swiftly down the lonely glen, but I could not see it, for
there was a trailing scarf of mist between the school-house and the
road. Presently I heard the swish of the wheels in water, and so
learned that they were crossing the ford to come to me. I had been
unstrung by the events of the evening, and fear at once pressed thick
upon me that this might be a sequel to them, as indeed it was.
While still out of sight the trap stopped, and I heard some one jump
from it. Then came this conversation, as distinct as though it had
been spoken into my ear:
"Can you see the school-house now, McKenzie?"
"I am groping for it, Rintoul. The mist seems to have made off with
the path."
"Where are you, McKenzie? I have lost sight of you."
It was but a ribbon of mist, and as these words were spoken McKenzie
broke through it. I saw him, though to him I was only a stone at my
door.
"I have found the house, Rintoul," he shouted, "and there is a light
in it, so that the fellow has doubtless returned."
"Then wait a moment for me."
"Stay where you are, Rintoul, I entreat you, and leave him to me. He
may recognize you."
"No, no, McKenzie, I am sure he never saw me before. I insist on
accompanying you."
"Your excitement, Rintoul, will betray you. Let me go alone. I can
question him without rousing his suspicions. Remember, she is only a
gypsy to him."
"He will learn nothing from me. I am quite calm now."
"Rintoul, I warn you your manner will betray you, and to-morrow it
will be roared through the countryside that your bride ran away from
the Spittal in a gypsy dress, and had to be brought back by force."
The altercation may have lasted another minute, but the suddenness
with which I learned Babbie's secret had left my ears incapable of
learning more. I daresay the two men started when they found me at my
door, but they did not remember, as few do remember who have the noisy
day to forget it in, how far the voice carries in the night.
They came as suddenly on me as I on them, for though they had given
unintentional notice of their approach, I had lost sight of the
speakers in their amazing words. Only a moment did young McKenzie's
anxiety to be spokesman give me to regard Lord Rintoul. I saw that he
was a thin man and tall, straight in the figure, but his head began to
sink into his shoulders and not very steady on them. His teeth had
grip of his under-lip, as if this was a method of controlling his
agitation, and he was opening and shutting his hands restlessly. He
had a dog with him which I was to meet again.
"Well met, Mr. Ogilvy," said McKenzie, who knew me slightly, having
once acted as judge at a cock-fight in the school-house. "We were
afraid we should have to rouse you."
"You will step inside?" I asked awkwardly, and while I spoke I was
wondering how long it would be before the earl's excitement broke
out.
"It is not necessary," McKenzie answered hurriedly. "My friend and I
(this is Mr. McClure) have been caught in the mist without a lamp, and
we thought you could perhaps favor us with one."
"Unfortunately I have nothing of the kind," I said, and the state of
mind I was in is shown by my answering seriously.
"Then we must wish you a good-night and manage as best we can," he
said; and then before he could touch, with affected indifference, on
the real object of their visit, the alarmed earl said angrily,
"McKenzie, no more of this."
"No more of this delay, do you mean, McClure?" asked McKenzie, and
then, turning to me said, "By the way, Mr. Ogilvy, I think this is our
second meeting to-night. I met you on the road a few hours ago with
your wife. Or was it your daughter?"
"It was neither, Mr. McKenzie," I answered, with the calmness of one
not yet recovered from a shock. "It was a gypsy girl."
"Where is she now?" cried Rintoul feverishly; but McKenzie, speaking
loudly at the same time, tried to drown his interference as one
obliterates writing by writing over it.
"A strange companion for a schoolmaster," he said. "What became of
her?"
"I left her near Caddam Wood," I replied, "but she is probably not
there now."
"Ah, they are strange creatures, these gypsies!" he said, casting a
warning look at the earl. "Now I wonder where she had been bound
for."
"There is a gypsy encampment on the hill," I answered, though I cannot
say why.
"She is there!" exclaimed Rintoul, and was done with me.
"I daresay," McKenzie said indifferently. "However, it is nothing to
us. Good-night, sir."
The earl had started for the trap, but McKenzie's salute reminded him
of a forgotten courtesy, and, despite his agitation, he came back to
apologize. I admired him for this. Then my thoughtlessness must needs
mar all.
"Good-night, Mr. McKenzie," I said. "Good-night, Lord Rintoul."
I had addressed him by his real name. Never a turnip fell from a
bumping, laden cart, and the driver more unconscious of it, than I
that I had dropped that word. I re-entered the house, but had not
reached my chair when McKenzie's hand fell roughly on me, and I was
swung round.
"Mr. Ogilvy," he said, the more savagely I doubt not because his
passions had been chained so long, "you know more than you would have
us think. Beware, sir, of recognising that gypsy should you ever see
her again in different attire. I advise you to have forgotten this
night when you waken to-morrow morning."
With a menacing gesture he left me, and I sank into a chair, glad to
lose sight of the glowering eyes with which he had pinned me to the
wall. I did not hear the trap cross the ford and renew its journey.
When I looked out next, the night had fallen very dark, and the glen
was so deathly in its drowsiness that I thought not even the cry of
murder could tear its eyes open.
The earl and McKenzie would be some distance still from the hill when
the office-bearers had scoured it in vain for their minister. The
gypsies, now dancing round their fires to music that, on ordinary
occasions, Lang Tammas would have stopped by using his fists to the
glory of God, had seen no minister, they said, and disbelieved in the
existence of the mysterious Egyptian.
"Liars they are to trade," Spens declared to his companions, "but now
and again they speak truth, like a standing clock, and I'm beginning
to think the minister's lassie was invented in the square."
"Not so," said the precentor, "for we saw her oursel's a short year
syne, and Hendry Munn there allows there's townsfolk that hae passed
her in the glen mair recently."
"I only allowed," Hendry said cautiously, "that some sic talk had shot
up sudden-like in the town. Them that pretends they saw her says that
she joukit quick out o' sicht."
"Ay, and there's another quirk in that," responded the suspicious
precentor.
"I'se uphaud the minister's sitting in the manse in his slippers by
this time," Hendry said.
"I'm willing," replied Whamond, "to gang back and speir, or to search
Caddam next; but let the matter drop I winna, though I ken you're a'
awid to be hame now."
"And naturally," retorted Tosh, "for the nicht's coming on as black as
pick, and by the time we're at Caddam we'll no even see the trees."
Toward Caddam, nevertheless, they advanced, hearing nothing but a
distant wind and the whish of their legs in the broom.
"Whaur's John Spens?" Hendry said suddenly.
They turned back and found Spens rooted to the ground, as a boy
becomes motionless when he thinks he is within arm's reach of a nest
and the bird sitting on the eggs.
"What do you see, man?" Hendry whispered.
"As sure as death," answered Spens, awe-struck, "I felt a drap o'
rain."
"It's no rain we're here to look for," said the precentor.
"Peter Tosh," cried Spens, "it was a drap! Oh, Peter! how are you
looking at me so queer, Peter, when you should be thanking the Lord
for the promise that's in that drap?"
"Come away," Whamond said, impatiently; but Spens answered, "No till
I've offered up a prayer for the promise that's in that drap. Peter
Tosh, you've forgotten to take off your bonnet."
"Think twice, John Spens," gasped Tosh, "afore you pray for rain this
nicht."
The others thought him crazy, but he went on, with a catch in his
voice:
"I felt a drap o' rain mysel', just afore it came on dark so hurried,
and my first impulse was to wish that I could carry that drap about
wi' me and look at it. But, John Spens, when I looked up I saw sic a
change running ower the sky that I thocht hell had taen the place o'
heaven, and that there was waterspouts gathering therein for the
drowning o' the world."
"There's no water in hell," the precentor said grimly.
"Genesis ix.," said Spens, "verses 8 to 17. Ay, but, Peter, you've
startled me, and I'm thinking we should be stepping hame. Is that a
licht?"
"It'll be in Nanny Webster's," Hendry said, after they had all
regarded the light.
"I never heard that Nanny needed a candle to licht her to her bed,"
the precentor muttered.
"She was awa to meet Sanders the day as he came out o' the Tilliedrum
gaol," Spens remembered, "and I daresay the licht means they're hame
again."
"It's well kent--" began Hendry, and would have recalled his words.
"Hendry Munn," cried the precentor, "if you hae minded onything that
may help us, out wi't."
"I was just minding," the kirk officer answered reluctantly, "that
Nanny allows it's Mr. Dishart that has been keeping her frae the
poorhouse. You canna censure him for that, Tammas."
"Can I no?" retorted Whamond. "What business has he to befriend a
woman that belongs to another denomination? I'll see to the bottom o'
that this nicht. Lads, follow me to Nanny's, and dinna be surprised if
we find baith the minister and the Egyptian there."
They had not advanced many yards when Spens jumped to the side,
crying, "Be wary, that's no the wind; it's a machine!"
Immediately the doctor's dogcart was close to them, with Rob Dow for
its only occupant. He was driving slowly, or Whamond could not have
escaped the horse's hoofs.
"Is that you, Rob Dow?" said the precentor sourly. "I tell you, you'll
be gaoled for stealing the doctor's machine."
"The Hielandman wasna muckle hurt, Rob," Hendry said, more
good-naturedly.
"I ken that," replied Rob, scowling at the four of them. "What are you
doing here on sic a nicht?"
"Do you see anything strange in the nicht, Rob?" Tosh asked
apprehensively.
"It's setting to rain," Dow replied. "I dinna see it, but I feel it."
"Ay," said Tosh, eagerly, "but will it be a saft, cowdie sweet
ding-on?"
"Let the heavens open if they will," interposed Spens recklessly. "I
would swap the drought for rain, though it comes down in a sheet as in
the year twelve."
"And like a sheet it'll come," replied Dow, "and the deil'll blaw it
about wi' his biggest bellowses."