style="font-size:15px;"> “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.
42
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.
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 43 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 44 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, 45 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
