By the following Monday it was known at many looms¹ that something sat heavily on the Auld² Licht minister’s mind. On the previous day he had preached his second sermon of warning to susceptible³ 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 possessed⁴ 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 passionately⁵ 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 reverently⁶.”
 
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 thaw⁷, nothing to be heard from a distance but the swish of curling-stones through 144 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 rustled⁸ 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 decided⁹ 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 spoke¹⁰ 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 frivolity¹¹; 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 repent¹² 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 145 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 disappearance¹³ 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 plunder¹⁴ 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 amazement¹⁵.
 
“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 espied¹⁶ 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 standing¹⁸ 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——”
 
146
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 deride¹⁹ 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, severely²⁰. “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 holly²¹.”
 
She was dressed as he had seen her previously²², but for a cluster of holly berries at her breast.
 
“............