The Little Minister Part 15

"I have no appet.i.te," the minister replied, pus.h.i.+ng his plate from him. "Jean, answer me."

"'Deed, then," said Jean willingly, "they hinna ta'en her to Tilliedrum."

"For what reason?" asked Gavin, his dread increasing.

"For the reason that they couldna catch her," Jean answered. "She spirited hersel awa', the magerful crittur."

"What! But I heard you say----"

"Ay, they had her aince, but they couldna keep her. It's like a witch story. They had her safe in the town-house, and baith s.h.i.+rra and captain guarding her, and syne in a clink she wasna there. A' nicht they looked for her, but she hadna left so muckle as a foot-print ahint her, and in the tail of the day they had to up wi' their tap in their lap and march awa without her."

Gavin's appet.i.te returned.

"Has she been seen since the soldiers went away?" he asked, laying down his spoon with a new fear. "Where is she now?"

"No human eye has seen her," Jean answered impressively. "Whaur is she now? Whaur does the flies vanish to in winter? We ken they're some gait, but whaur?"

"But what are the people saying about her?"

"Daft things," said Jean. "Old Charles Yuill gangs the length o'

hinting that she's dead and buried."

"She could not have buried herself, Jean," Margaret said, mildly.

"I dinna ken. Charles says she's even capable o' that."

Then Jean retired reluctantly (but leaving the door ajar) and Gavin fell to on his porridge. He was now so cheerful that Margaret wondered.

"If half the stories about this gypsy be true," she said, "she must be more than a mere woman."

"Less, you mean, mother," Gavin said, with conviction. "She is a woman, and a sinful one."

"Did you see her, Gavin?"

"I saw her. Mother, she flouted me!"

"The daring tawpie!" exclaimed Margaret.

"She is all that," said the minister.

"Was she dressed just like an ordinary gypsy body? But you don't notice clothes much, Gavin."

"I noticed hers," Gavin said, slowly, "she was in a green and red, I think, and barefooted."

"Ay," shouted Jean from the kitchen, startling both of them; "but she had a lang grey-like cloak too. She was seen jouking up closes in't."

Gavin rose, considerably annoyed, and shut the parlour door.

"Was she as bonny as folks say?" asked Margaret. "Jean says they speak of her beauty as unearthly."

"Beauty of her kind," Gavin explained learnedly, "is neither earthly nor heavenly." He was seeing things as they are very clearly now.

"What," he said, "is mere physical beauty? Pooh!"

"And yet," said Margaret, "the soul surely does speak through the face to some extent."

"Do you really think so, mother?" Gavin asked, a little uneasily.

"I have always noticed it," Margaret said, and then her son sighed.

"But I would let no face influence me a jot," he said, recovering.

"Ah, Gavin, I'm thinking I'm the reason you pay so little regard to women's faces. It's no natural."

"You've spoilt me, you see, mother, for ever caring for another woman.

I would compare her to you, and then where would she be?"

"Sometime," Margaret said, "you'll think differently."

"Never," answered Gavin, with a violence that ended the conversation.

Soon afterwards he set off for the town, and in pa.s.sing down the garden walk cast a guilty glance at the summer-seat. Something black was lying in one corner of it. He stopped irresolutely, for his mother was nodding to him from her window. Then he disappeared into the little arbour. What had caught his eye was a Bible. On the previous day, as he now remembered, he had been called away while studying in the garden, and had left his Bible on the summer-seat, a pencil between its pages. Not often probably had the Egyptian pa.s.sed a night in such company.

But what was this? Gavin had not to ask himself the question. The gypsy's cloak was lying neatly folded at the other end of the seat.

Why had the woman not taken it with her? Hardly had he put this question when another stood in front of it. What was to be done with the cloak? He dared not leave it there for Jean to discover. He could not take it into the manse in daylight. Beneath the seat was a tool-chest without a lid, and into this he crammed the cloak. Then, having turned the box face downwards, he went about his duties. But many a time during the day he s.h.i.+vered to the marrow, reflecting suddenly that at this very moment Jean might be carrying the accursed thing (at arms' length, like a dog in disgrace) to his mother.

Now let those who think that Gavin has not yet paid toll for taking the road with the Egyptian, follow the adventures of the cloak.

Shortly after gloaming fell that night Jean encountered her master in the lobby of the manse. He was carrying something, and when he saw her he slipped it behind his back. Had he pa.s.sed her openly she would have suspected nothing, but this made her look at him.

"Why do you stare so, Jean?" Gavin asked, conscience-stricken, and he stood with his back to the wall until she had retired in bewilderment.

"I have noticed her watching me sharply all day," he said to himself, though it was only he who had been watching her.

Gavin carried the cloak to his bedroom, thinking to lock it away in his chest, but it looked so wicked lying there that he seemed to see it after the lid was shut.

The garret was the best place for it. He took it out of the chest and was opening his door gently, when there was Jean again. She had been employed very innocently in his mother's room, but he said tartly--

"Jean, I really cannot have this," which sent Jean to the kitchen with her ap.r.o.n at her eyes.

Gavin stowed the cloak beneath the garret bed, and an hour afterwards was engaged on his sermon, when he distinctly heard some one in the garret. He ran up the ladder with a terrible brow for Jean, but it was not Jean; it was Margaret.

"Mother," he said in alarm, "what are you doing here?"

"I am only tidying up the garret, Gavin."

"Yes, but--it is too cold for you. Did Jean--did Jean ask you to come up here?"

"Jean? She knows her place better."

Gavin took Margaret down to the parlour, but his confidence in the garret had gone. He stole up the ladder again, dragged the cloak from its lurking place, and took it into the garden. He very nearly met Jean in the lobby again, but hearing him coming she fled precipitately, which he thought very suspicious.