Books: The Little Minister

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"Ah," Babbie replied, mournfully, "I have read my fortune, Nanny,
and there is not much happiness in it.""

"I hope that is not true," Gavin said, simply.

They were standing at the door, and she was looking toward the
hill, perhaps without seeing it. All at once it came to Gavin that
this fragile girl might have a history far sadder and more
turbulent than his.

"Do you really care?" she asked, without looking at him.

"Yes," he said stoutly, "I care."

"Because you do not know me," she said.

"Because I do know you," he answered.

Now she did look at him.

"I believe," she said, making a discovery, "that you misunderstand
me less than those who have known me longer."

This was a perilous confidence, for it at once made Gavin say
"Babbie."

"Ah," she answered, frankly, "I am glad to hear that. I thought
you did not really like me, because you never called me by my
name."

Gavin drew a great breath.

"That was not the reason," he said.

The reason was now unmistakable.

"I was wrong," said the Egyptian, a little alarmed; "you do not
understand me at all."

She returned to Nanny, and Gavin set off, holding his head high,
his brain in a whirl. Five minutes afterwards, when Nanny was at
the fire, the diamond ring on her little finger, he came back,
looking like one who had just seen sudden death.

"I had forgotten," he said, with a fierceness aimed at himself,
"that to-morrow is the Sabbath."

"Need that make any difference?" asked the gypsy.

"At this hour on Monday," said Gavin, hoarsely, "I will be at the
Kaims."

He went away without another word, and Babbie watched him from the
window. Nanny had not looked up from the ring.

"What a pity he is a minister!" the girl said, reflectively.
"Nanny, you are not listening."

The old woman was making the ring flash by the light of the fire.

"Nanny, do you hear me? Did you see Mr. Dishart come back?"

"I heard the door open," Nanny answered, without taking her greedy
eyes off the ring. "Was it him? Whaur did you get this, lassie?"

"Give it me back, Nanny, I am going now."

But Nanny did not give it back; she put her other hand over it to
guard it, and there she crouched, warming herself not at the fire,
but at the ring.

"Give it me, Nanny."

"It winna come off my finger." She gloated over it, nursed it,
kissed it.

"I must have it, Nanny."

The Egyptian put her hand lightly on the old woman's shoulder, and
Nanny jumped up, pressing the ring to her bosom. Her face had
become cunning and ugly; she retreated into a corner.

"Nanny, give me back my ring or I will take it from you."

The cruel light of the diamond was in Nanny's eyes for a moment,
and then, shuddering, she said, "Tak your ring awa, tak it out o'
my sicht."

In the meantime Gavin was trudging home gloomily composing his
second sermon against women. I have already given the entry in my
own diary for that day: this is his:--"Notes on Jonah. Exchanged
vol. xliii., 'European Magazine,' for Owen's 'Justification' (per
flying stationer). Began Second Samuel. Visited Nanny Webster."
There is no mention of the Egyptian.

CHAPTER XVI.

CONTINUED MISBEHAVIOUR OF THE EGYPTIAN WOMAN.

BY the following Monday it was known at many looms that something
sat heavily on the Auld Licht minister's mind. On the previous day
he had preached his second sermon of warning to susceptible young
men, and his first mention of the word "woman" had blown even the
sleepy heads upright. Now he had salt fish for breakfast, and on
clearing the table Jean noticed that his knife and fork were
uncrossed. He was observed walking into a gooseberry bush by Susy
Linn, who possessed the pioneer spring-bed of Thrums, and always
knew when her man jumped into it by suddenly finding herself shot
to the ceiling. Lunan, the tinsmith, and two women, who had the
luck to be in the street at the time, saw him stopping at Dr.
McQueen's door, as if about to knock, and then turning smartly
away. His hat blew off in the school wynd, where a wind wanders
ever, looking for hats, and he chased it so passionately that Lang
Tammas went into Allardyce's smiddy to say--

"I dinna like it. Of course he couldna afford to lose his hat, but
he should hae run after it mair reverently."

Gavin, indeed, was troubled. He had avoided speaking of the
Egyptian to his mother. He had gone to McQueen's house to ask the
doctor to accompany him to the Kaims, but with the knocker in his
hand he changed his mind, and now he was at the place of meeting
alone. It was a day of thaw, nothing to be heard from a distance
but the swish of curling-stones through water on Rashie-bog, where
the match for the eldership was going on. Around him. Gavin saw
only dejected firs with drops of water falling listlessly from
them, clods of snow, and grass that rustled as if animals were
crawling through it. All the roads were slack.

I suppose no young man to whom society has not become a cheap
thing can be in Gavin's position, awaiting the coming of an
attractive girl, without giving thought to what he should say to
her. When in the pulpit or visiting the sick, words came in a rush
to the little minister, but he had to set his teeth to determine
what to say to the Egyptian.

This was because he had not yet decided which of two women she
was. Hardly had he started on one line of thought when she crossed
his vision in a new light, and drew him after her.

Her "Need that make any difference?" sang in his ear like another
divit, cast this time at religion itself, and now he spoke aloud,
pointing his finger at a fir: "I said at the mud house that I
believed you because I knew you. To my shame be it said that I
spoke falsely. How dared you bewitch me? In your presence I flung
away the precious hours in frivolity; I even forgot the Sabbath.
For this I have myself to blame. I am an unworthy preacher of the
Word. I sinned far more than you who have been brought up
godlessly from your cradle. Nevertheless, whoever you are, I call
upon you, before we part never to meet again, to repent of your--"

And then it was no mocker of the Sabbath he was addressing, but a
woman with a child's face, and there were tears in her eyes. "Do
you care?" she was saying, and again he answered, "Yes, I care."
This girl's name was not Woman, but Babbie.

Now Gavin made an heroic attempt to look upon both these women at
once. "Yes, I believe in you," he said to them, "but henceforth
you must send your money to Nanny by another messenger. You are a
gypsy and I am a minister; and that must part us. I refuse to see
you again. I am not angry with you, but as a minister--"

It was not the disappearance of one of the women that clipped this
argument short; it was Babbie singing--

"It fell on a day, on a bonny summer day,
When the corn grew green and yellow,
That there fell out a great dispute
Between Argyle and Airly.

"The Duke of Montrose has written to Argyle
To come in the morning early,
An' lead in his men by the back o' Dunkeld
To plunder the bonny house o' Airly."

"Where are you?" cried Gavin in bewilderment.

"I am watching you from my window so high," answered the Egyptian;
and then the minister, looking up, saw her peering at him from a
fir.

"How did you get up there?" he asked in amazement.

"On my broomstick," Babbie replied, and sang on--

"The lady looked o'er her window sae high,
And oh! but she looked weary,
And there she espied the great Argyle
Come to plunder the bonny house o' Airly."

"What are you doing there?" Gavin said, wrathfully.

"This is my home," she answered. "I told you I lived in a tree."

"Come down at once," ordered Gavin. To which the singer responded-
-

"'Come down, come down, Lady Margaret,' he says;
'Come down and kiss me fairly
Or before the morning clear day light
I'll no leave a standing stane in Airly.'"

"If you do not come down this instant," Gavin said in a rage, "and
give me what I was so foolish as to come for, I--"

The Egyptian broke in--

"'I wouldna kiss thee, great Argyle,
I wouldna kiss thee fairly;
I wouldna kiss thee, great Argyle,
Gin you shouldna leave a standing stane in Airly.'"

"You have deceived Nanny," Gavin cried, hotly, "and you have
brought me here to deride me. I will have no more to do with you."

He walked away quickly, but she called after him, "I am coming
down. I have the money," and next moment a snowball hit his hat.

"That is for being cross," she explained, appearing so
unexpectedly at his elbow that he was taken aback. "I had to come
close up to you before I flung it, or it would have fallen over my
shoulder. Why are you so nasty to-day? and, oh, do you know you
were speaking to yourself?"

"You are mistaken," said Gavin, severely. "I was speaking to you."

"You didn't see me till I began to sing, did you?"

"Nevertheless I was speaking to you, or rather, I was saying to
myself what--"

"What you had decided to say to me?" said the delighted gypsy. "Do
you prepare your talk like sermons? I hope you have prepared
something nice for me. If it is very nice I may give you this
bunch of holly."

She was dressed as he had seen her previously, but for a cluster
of holly berries at her breast.

"I don't know that you will think it nice," the minister answered,
slowly, "but my duty--" "If it is about duty," entreated Babbie,
"don't say it. Don't, and I will give you the berries."

She took the berries from her dress, smiling triumphantly the
while like one who had discovered a cure for duty; and instead of
pointing the finger of wrath at her, Gavin stood expectant.

"But no," he said, remembering who he was, and pushing the gift
from him, "I will not be bribed. I must tell you--"

"Now," said the Egyptian, sadly, "I see you are angry with me. Is
it because I said I lived in a tree? Do forgive me for that
dreadful lie."

She had gone on her knees before he could stop her, and was gazing
imploringly at him, with her hands clasped.

"You are mocking me again," said Gavin, "but I am not angry with
you. Only you must understand--"

She jumped up and put her fingers to her ears.

"You see I can hear nothing," she said.

"Listen while I tell you--"

"I don't hear a word. Why do you scold me when I have kept my
promise? If I dared to take my fingers from my ears I would give
you the money for Nanny. And, Mr. Dishart, I must be gone in five
minutes."

"In five minutes!" echoed Gavin, with such a dismal face that
Babbie heard the words with her eyes, and dropped her hands.

"Why are you in such haste?" he asked, taking the five pounds
mechanically, and forgetting all that he had meant to say.

"Because they require me at home," she answered, with a sly glance
at her fir. "And, remember, when I run away you must not follow
me."

"I won't," said Gavin, so promptly that she was piqued.

"Why not?" she asked. "But of course you only came here for the
money. Well, you have got it. Good-bye."

"You know that was not what I meant," said Gavin, stepping after
her. "I have told you already that whatever other people say, I
trust you. I believe in you, Babbie."

"Was that what you were saying to the tree?" asked the Egyptian,
demurely. Then, perhaps thinking it wisest not to press this
point, she continued irrelevantly, "It seems such a pity that you
are a minister."

"A pity to be a minister!" exclaimed Gavin, indignantly. "Why,
why, you--why, Babbie, how have you been brought up?"

"In a curious way," Babbie answered, shortly, "but I can't tell
you about that just now. Would you like to hear all about me?"
Suddenly she seemed to have become confidential.

"Do you really think me a gypsy?" she asked.

"I have tried not to ask myself that question."

"Why?"

"Because it seems like doubting your word."

"I don't see how you can think of me at all without wondering who
I am."

"No, and so I try not to think of you at all."

"Oh, I don't know that you need do that."

"I have not quite succeeded."

The Egyptian's pique had vanished, but she may have thought that
the conversation was becoming dangerous, for she said abruptly--

"Well, I sometimes think about you."

"Do you?" said Gavin, absurdly gratified. "What do you think about
me?"

"I wonder," answered the Egyptian, pleasantly, "which of us is the
taller."

Gavin's fingers twitched with mortification, and not only his
fingers but his toes.

"Let us measure," she said, sweetly, putting her back to his. "You
are not stretching your neck, are you?"

But the minister broke away from her.

"There is one subject," he said, with great dignity, "that I allow
no one to speak of in my presence, and that is my--my height."

His face was as white as his cravat when the surprised Egyptian
next looked at him, and he was panting like one who has run a
mile. She was ashamed of herself, and said so.

"It is a topic I would rather not speak about," Gavin answered,
dejectedly, "especially to you."

He meant that he would rather be a tall man in her company than in
any other, and possibly she knew this, though all she answered
was--

"You wanted to know if I am really a gypsy. Well, I am."

"An ordinary gypsy?"

"Do you think me ordinary?"

"I wish I knew what to think of you."

"Ah, well, that is my forbidden topic. But we have a good many
ideas in common after all, have we not, though you are only a
minis--I mean, though I am only a gypsy?"

There fell between them a silence that gave Babbie time to
remember she must go.

"I have already stayed too long," she said. "Give my love to
Nanny, and say that I am coming to see her soon, perhaps on
Monday. I don't suppose you will be there on Monday, Mr. Dishart?"

"I--I cannot say."

"No, you will be too busy. Are you to take the holly berries?"

"I had better not," said Gavin, dolefully.

"Oh, if you don't want them--"

"Give them to me," he said, and as he took them his hand shook.

"I know why you are looking so troubled," said the Egyptian,
archly. "You think I am to ask you the colour of my eyes, and you
have forgotten again."

He would have answered, but she checked him.

"Make no pretence," she said, severely; "I know you think they are
blue."

She came close to him until her face almost touched his.

"Look hard at them," she said, solemnly, "and after this you may
remember that they are black, black, black!"

At each repetition of the word she shook her head in his face. She
was adorable. Gavin's arms--but they met on nothing. She had run
away.

When the little minister had gone, a man came from behind a tree
and shook his fist in the direction taken by the gypsy. It was Rob
Dow, black with passion.

"It's the Egyptian!" he cried. "You limmer, wha are you that hae
got haud o' the minister?"

He pursued her, but she vanished as from Gavin is Windyghoul.

"A common Egyptian!" he muttered when he had to give up the
search. "But take care, you little devil," he called aloud; "take
care; if I catch you playing pranks wi' that man again I'll wring
your neck like a hen's!"

CHAPTER XVII.

INTRUSION OF HAGGART INTO THESE PAGES AGAINST THE AUTHOR'S WISH.

Margaret having heard the doctor say that one may catch cold in
the back, had decided instantly to line Gavin's waistcoat with
flannel. She was thus engaged, with pins in her mouth and the
scissors hiding from her every time she wanted them, when Jean,
red and flurried, abruptly entered the room.

"There! I forgot to knock at the door again," Jean exclaimed,
pausing contritely.

"Never mind. Is it Rob Dow wanting the minister?" asked Margaret,
who had seen Rob pass the manse dyke.

"Na, he wasna wanting to see the minister."

"Ah, then, he came to see you, Jean," said Margaret, archly.

"A widow man!" cried Jean, tossing her head. "But Rob Dow was in
no condition to be friendly wi' onybody the now."

"Jean, you don't mean that he has been drinking again?"

"I canna say he was drunk."

"Then what condition was he in?"

"He was in a--a swearing condition," Jean answered, guardedly.
"But what I want to speir at you is, can I gang down to the
Tenements for a minute? I'll run there and back."

"Certainly you can go, Jean, but you must not run. You are always
running. Did Dow bring you word that you were wanted in the
Tenements?"

"No exactly, but I--I want to consult Tammas Haggart about--about
something."

"About Dow, I believe, Jean?"

"Na, but about something he has done. Oh, ma'am, you surely dinna
think I would take a widow man?"

It was the day after Gavin's meeting with the Egyptian at the
Kaims, and here is Jean's real reason for wishing to consult
Haggart. Half an hour before she hurried to the parlour she had
been at the kitchen door wondering whether she should spread out
her washing in the garret or risk hanging it in the courtyard. She
had just decided on the garret when she saw Rob Dow morosely
regarding her from the gateway.

"Whaur is he?" growled Rob.

"He's out, but it's no for me to say whaur he is," replied Jean,
whose weakness was to be considered a church official. "No that I
ken," truthfulness compelled her to add, for she had an ambition
to be everything she thought Gavin would like a woman to be.

Rob seized her wrists viciously and glowered into her face.

"You're ane o' them," he said.

"Let me go. Ane o' what?"

"Ane o' thae limmers called women."

"Sal," retorted Jean with spirit, "you're ane o' thae brutes
called men. You're drunk, Rob Dow."

"In the legs maybe, but no higher. I haud a heap."

"Drunk again, after all your promises to the minister! And you
said yoursel' that he had pulled you out o' hell by the root."

"It's himsel' that has flung me back again," Rob said, wildly.
"Jean Baxter, what does it mean when a minister carries flowers in
his pouch; ay, and takes them out to look at them ilka minute?"

"How do you ken about the holly?" asked Jean, off her guard.

"You limmer," said Dow, "you've been in his pouches."

"It's a lie!" cried the outraged Jean. "I just saw the holly this
morning in a jug on his chimley."

"Carefully put by? Is it hod on the chimley? Does he stand looking
at it? Do you tell me he's fond-like o't?"

"Mercy me!" Jean exclaimed, beginning to shake; "wha is she, Rob
Dow?"

"Let me see it first in its jug," Rob answered, slyly, "and syne I
may tell you." This was not the only time Jean had been asked to
show the minister's belongings. Snecky Hobart, among others, had
tried on Gavin's hat in the manse kitchen, and felt queer for some
time afterwards. Women had been introduced on tiptoe to examine
the handle of his umbrella. But Rob had not come to admire. He
snatched the holly from Jean's hands, and casting it on the ground
pounded it with his heavy boots, crying, "Greet as you like, Jean.
That's the end o' his flowers, and if I had the tawpie he got them
frae I would serve her in the same way."

"I'll tell him what you've done," said terrified Jean, who had
tried to save the berries at the expense of her fingers.

"Tell him," Dow roared; "and tell him what I said too. Ay, and
tell him I was at the Kaims yestreen. Tell him I'm hunting high
and low for an Egyptian woman."

He flung recklessly out of the courtyard, leaving Jean looking
blankly at the mud that had been holly lately. Not his act of
sacrilege was distressing her, but his news. Were these berries a
love token? Had God let Rob Dow say they were a gypsy's love
token, and not slain him?

That Rob spoke of the Egyptian of the riots Jean never doubted. It
was known that the minister had met this woman in Nanny Webster's
house, but was it not also known that he had given her such a
talking-to as she could never come above? Many could repeat the
words in which he had announced to Nanny that his wealthy friends
in Glasgow were to give her all she needed. They could also tell
how majestic he looked when he turned the Egyptian out of the
house. In short, Nanny having kept her promise of secrecy, the
people had been forced to construct the scene in the mud house for
themselves, and it was only their story that was known to Jean.

She decided that, so far as the gypsy was concerned, Rob had
talked trash. He had seen the holly in the minister's hand, and,
being in drink, had mixed it up with the gossip about the
Egyptian. But that Gavin had preserved the holly because of the
donor was as obvious to Jean as that the vase in her hand was
empty. Who could she be? No doubt all the single ladies in Thrums
were in love with him, but that, Jean was sure, had not helped
them a step forward.

To think was to Jean a waste of time. Discovering that she had
been thinking, she was dismayed. There were the wet clothes in the
basket looking reproachfully at her. She hastened back to Gavin's
room with the vase, but it too had eyes, and they said, "When the
minister misses his holly he will question you." Now Gavin had
already smiled several times to Jean, and once he had marked
passages for her in her "Pilgrim's Progress," with the result that
she prized the marks more even than the passages. To lose his good
opinion was terrible to her. In her perplexity she decided to
consult wise Tammas Haggart, and hence her appeal to Margaret.

To avoid Chirsty, the humourist's wife, Jean sought Haggart at his
workshop window, which was so small that an old book sufficed for
its shutter. Haggart, whom she could see distinctly at his loom,
soon guessed from her knocks and signs (for he was strangely quick
in the uptake) that she wanted him to open the window.

"I want to speak to you confidentially," Jean said in a low voice.
"If you saw a grand man gey fond o' a flower, what would you
think?"

"I would think, Jean," Haggart answered, reflectively, "that he
had gien siller for't; ay, I would wonder--"

"What would you wonder?"

"I would wonder how muckle he paid."

"But if he was a--a minister, and keepit the flower--say it was a
common rose--fond-like on his chimley, what would you think?"

"I would think it was a black-burning disgrace for a minister to
be fond o' flowers."

"I dinna haud wi' that."

"Jean," said Haggart, "I allow no one to contradict me."

"It wasna my design. But, Tammas, if a--a minister was fond o' a
particular flower--say a rose--and you destroyed it by an
accident, when he wasna looking, what would you do?"

"I would gie him another rose for't."

"But if you didna want him to ken you had meddled wi't on his
chimley, what would you do?"

"I would put the new rose on the chimley, and he would never ken
the differ."

"That's what I'll do." muttered Jean, but she said aloud--

"But it micht be that particular rose he liked?"

"Havers, Jean. To a thinking man one rose is identical wi' another
rose. But how are you speiring?"

"Just out o' curiosity, and I maun be stepping now. Thank you
kindly, Tammas, for your humour."

"You're welcome," Haggart answered, and closed his window.

That day Rob Dow spent in misery, but so little were his fears
selfish that he scarcely gave a thought to his conduct at the
manse. For an hour he sat at his loom with his arms folded. Then
he slouched out of the house, cursing little Micah, so that a
neighbour cried "You drunken scoundrel!" after him. "He may be a
wee drunk," said Micah in his father's defense, "but he's no
mortal." Rob wandered to the Kaims in search of the Egyptian, and
returned home no happier. He flung himself upon his bed and dared
Micah to light the lamp. About gloaming he rose, unable to keep
his mouth shut on his thoughts any longer, and staggered to the
Tenements to consult Haggart. He found the humourist's door ajar,
and Wearyworld listening at it. "Out o' the road!" cried Rob,
savagely, and flung the policeman into the gutter.

"That was ill-dune, Rob Dow," Wearyworld said, picking himself up
leisurely.

"I'm thinking it was weel-dune," snarled Rob.

"Ay," said Weary world, "we needna quarrel about a difference o'
opeenion; but, Rob--"

Dow, however, had already entered the house and slammed the door.

"Ay, ay," muttered Wearyworld, departing, "you micht hae stood
still, Rob, and argued it out wi' me."

In less than an hour after his conversation with Jean at the
window it had suddenly struck Haggart that the minister she spoke
of must be Mr. Dishart. In two hours he had confided his
suspicions to Chirsty. In ten minutes she had filled the house
with gossips. Rob arrived to find them in full cry.

"Ay, Rob," said Chirsty, genially, for gossip levels ranks,
"you're just in time to hear a query about the minister."

"Rob," said the Glen Quharity post, from whom I subsequently got
the story, "Mr. Dishart has fallen in--in--what do you call the
thing, Chirsty?"

Birse knew well what the thing was called, but the word is a
staggerer to say in company.

"In love," answered Chirsty, boldly.

"Now we ken what he was doing in the country yestreen," said
Snecky Hobart, "the which has been, bothering us sair."

"The manse is fu' o' the flowers she sends him," said Tibbie
Craik. "Jean's at her wits'-end to ken whaur to put them a'."

"Wha is she?"

It was Rob Dow who spoke. All saw he had been drinking, or they
might have wondered at his vehemence. As it was, everybody looked
at every other body, and then everybody sighed.

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