"Then I will tell you all about it," said Babbie, "for it is natural that you should want to know."
He looked eagerly at her, and she had become serious and sad.
"I must tell you at the same time," she said, "who I am, and then--then we shall never see each other any more."
"Why should you tell me?" cried Gavin, his hand rising to stop her.
"Because you have a right to know," she replied, now too much in earnest to see that she was yielding a point. "I should prefer not to tell you; yet there is nothing wrong in my secret, and it may make you think of me kindly when I have gone away."
"Don"t speak in that way, Babbie, after you have forgiven me."
"Did I hurt you? It was only because I know that you cannot trust me while I remain a mystery. I know you would try to trust me, but doubts would cross your mind. Yes, they would; they are the shadows that mysteries cast. Who can believe a gypsy if the odds are against her?"
"I can," said Gavin; but she shook her head, and so would he had he remembered three recent sermons of his own preaching.
"I had better tell you all," she said, with an effort.
"It is my turn now to refuse to listen to you," exclaimed Gavin, who was only a chivalrous boy. "Babbie, I should like to hear your story, but until you want to tell it to me I will not listen to it. I have faith in your honour, and that is sufficient."
It was boyish, but I am glad Gavin said it; and now Babbie admired something in him that deserved admiration. His faith, no doubt, made her a better woman.
"I admit that I would rather tell you nothing just now," she said, gratefully. "You are sure you will never say again that you don"t understand me?"
"Quite sure," said Gavin, bravely. "And by-and-by you will offer to tell me of your free will?"
"Oh, don"t let us think of the future," answered Babbie. "Let us be happy for the moment."
This had been the Egyptian"s philosophy always, but it was ill-suited for Auld Licht ministers, as one of them was presently to discover.
"I want to make one confession, though," Babbie continued, almost reluctantly. "When you were so nasty a little while ago, I didn"t go back to Nanny"s. I stood watching you from behind a tree, and then, for an excuse to come back, I--I poured out the water. Yes, and I told you another lie. I really came back to admit that it was all my fault, if I could not get you to say that it was yours. I am so glad you gave in first."
She was very near him, and the tears had not yet dried on her eyes.
They were laughing eyes, eyes in distress, imploring eyes. Her pale face, smiling, sad, dimpled, yet entreating forgiveness, was the one prominent thing in the world to him just then. He wanted to kiss her.
He would have done it as soon as her eyes rested on his, but she continued without regarding him--
"How mean that sounds! Oh, if I were a man I should wish to be everything that I am not, and nothing that I am. I should scorn to be a liar, I should choose to be open in all things, I should try to fight the world honestly. But I am only a woman, and so--well, that is the kind of man I should like to marry."
"A minister may be all these things," said Gavin, breathlessly.
"The man I could love," Babbie went on, not heeding him, almost forgetting that he was there, "must not spend his days in idleness as the men I know do."
"I do not."
"He must be brave, no mere worker among others, but a leader of men."
"All ministers are."
"Who makes his influence felt."
"a.s.suredly."
"And takes the side of the weak against the strong, even though the strong be in the right."
"Always my tendency."
"A man who has a mind of his own, and having once made it up stands to it in defiance even of----"
"Of his session."
"Of the world. He must understand me."
"I do."
"And be my master."
"It is his lawful position in the house."
"He must not yield to my coaxing or tempers."
"It would be weakness."
"But compel me to do his bidding; yes, even thrash me if----"
"If you won"t listen to reason. Babbie," cried Gavin, "I am that man!"
Here the inventory abruptly ended, and these two people found themselves staring at each other, as if of a sudden they had heard something dreadful. I do not know how long they stood thus, motionless and horrified. I cannot tell even which stirred first. All I know is that almost simultaneously they turned from each other and hurried out of the wood in opposite directions.
Chapter Twenty.
END OF THE STATE OF INDECISION.
Long before I had any thought of writing this story, I had told it so often to my little maid that she now knows some of it better than I.
If you saw me looking up from my paper to ask her, "What was it that Birse said to Jean about the minister"s flowers?" or, "Where was Hendry Munn hidden on the night of the riots?" and heard her confident answers, you would conclude that she had been in the thick of these events, instead of born many years after them. I mention this now because I have reached a point where her memory contradicts mine. She maintains that Rob Dow was told of the meeting in the wood by the two boys whom it disturbed, while my own impression is that he was a witness of it. If she is right, Rob must have succeeded in frightening the boys into telling no other person, for certainly the scandal did not spread in Thrums. After all, however, it is only important to know that Rob did learn of the meeting. Its first effect was to send him sullenly to the drink.
Many a time since these events have I pictured what might have been their upshot had Dow confided their discovery to me. Had I suspected why Rob was grown so dour again, Gavin"s future might have been very different. I was meeting Rob now and again in the glen, asking, with an affected carelessness he did not bottom, for news of the little minister, but what he told me was only the gossip of the town; and what I should have known, that Thrums might never know it, he kept to himself. I suppose he feared to speak to Gavin, who made several efforts to reclaim him, but without avail.
Yet Rob"s heart opened for a moment to one man, or rather was forced open by that man. A few days after the meeting at the well, Rob was bringing the smell of whisky with him down Banker"s Close when he ran against a famous staff, with which the doctor pinned him to the wall.
"Ay," said the outspoken doctor, looking contemptuously into Rob"s bleary eyes, "so this is what your conversion amounts to? Faugh! Rob Dow, if you were half a man the very thought of what Mr. Dishart has done for you would make you run past the public houses."
"It"s the thocht o" him that sends me running to them," growled Rob, knocking down the staff. "Let me alane."
"What do you mean by that?" demanded McQueen, hooking him this time.