"Now I remember," he said, shuddering. "You have proved yourself my friend, sir, twice in the four and twenty hours."
"Only once, I fear," I replied gloomily. "I was no friend when I sent you to the earl"s bride last night."
"You know who she is?" he cried, clutching me, and finding it agony to move his limbs.
"I know now," I said, and had to tell him how I knew before he would answer another question. Then I became listener, and you who read know to what alarming story.
"And all that time," I cried reproachfully, when he had done, "you gave your mother not a thought."
"Not a thought," he answered; and I saw that he p.r.o.nounced a harsher sentence on himself than could have come from me. "All that time!" he repeated, after a moment. "It was only a few minutes, while the ten o"clock bell was ringing."
"Only a few minutes," I said, "but they changed the channel of the Quharity, and perhaps they have done not less to you."
"That may be," he answered gravely, "but it is of the present I must think just now. Mr. Ogilvy, what a.s.surance have I, while lying here helpless, that the marriage at the Spittal is not going on?"
"None, I hope," I said to myself, and listened longingly for the cannon. But to him I only pointed out that no woman need go through a form of marriage against her will.
"Rintoul carried her off with no possible purport," he said, "but to set my marriage at defiance, and she has had a conviction always that to marry me would be to ruin me. It was only in the shiver Lord Rintoul"s voice in the darkness sent through her that she yielded to my wishes. If she thought that marriage last night could be annulled by another to-day, she would consent to the second, I believe, to save me from the effects of the first. You are incredulous, sir; but you do not know of what sacrifices love is capable."
Something of that I knew, but I did not tell him. I had seen from his manner rather than his words that he doubted the validity of the gypsy marriage, which the king had only consented to celebrate because Babbie was herself an Egyptian. The ceremony had been interrupted in the middle.
"It was no marriage," I said, with a confidence I was far from feeling.
"In the sight of G.o.d," he replied excitedly, "we took each other for man and wife."
I had to hold him down in bed.
"You are too weak to stand, man," I said, "and yet you think you could start off this minute for the Spittal."
"I must go," he cried. "She is my wife. That impious marriage may have taken place already."
"Oh, that it had!" was my prayer. "It has not," I said to him. "A cannon is to be fired immediately after the ceremony, and all the glen will hear it."
I spoke on the impulse, thinking to allay his desire to be off; but he said, "Then I may yet be in time." Somewhat cruelly I let him rise, that he might realize his weakness. Every bone in him cried out at his first step, and he sank into a chair.
"You will go to the Spittal for me?" he implored.
"I will not," I told him. "You are asking me to fling away my life."
To prove my words I opened the door, and he saw what the flood was doing. Nevertheless, he rose and tottered several times across the room, trying to revive his strength. Though every bit of him was aching, I saw that he would make the attempt.
"Listen to me," I said. "Lord Rintoul can maintain with some reason that it was you rather than he who abducted Babbie. Nevertheless, there will not, I am convinced, be any marriage at the Spittal to-day.
When he carried her off from the Toad"s-hole, he acted under impulses not dissimilar to those that took you to it. Then, I doubt not, he thought possession was all the law, but that scene on the hill has staggered him by this morning. Even though she thinks to save you by marrying him, he will defer his wedding until he learns the import of yours."
I did not believe in my own reasoning, but I would have said anything to detain him until that cannon was fired. He seemed to read my purpose, for he pushed my arguments from him with his hands, and continued to walk painfully to and fro.
"To defer the wedding," he said, "would be to tell all his friends of her gypsy origin, and of me. He will risk much to avoid that."
"In any case," I answered, "you must now give some thought to those you have forgotten, your mother and your church."
"That must come afterwards," he said firmly. "My first duty is to my wife."
The door swung to sharply just then, and he started. He thought it was the cannon.
"I wish to G.o.d it had been!" I cried, interpreting his thoughts.
"Why do you wish me ill?" he asked.
"Mr. Dishart," I said solemnly, rising and facing him, and disregarding his question, "if that woman is to be your wife, it will be at a cost you cannot estimate till you return to Thrums. Do you think that if your congregation knew of this gypsy marriage they would have you for their minister for another day? Do you enjoy the prospect of taking one who might be an earl"s wife into poverty--ay, and disgraceful poverty? Do you know your mother so little as to think she could survive your shame? Let me warn you, sir, of what I see. I see another minister in the Auld Licht kirk, I see you and your wife stoned through our wynds, stoned from Thrums, as malefactors have been chased out of it ere now; and as certainly as I see these things I see a hea.r.s.e standing at the manse door, and stern men denying a son"s right to help to carry his mother"s coffin to it. Go your way, sir; but first count the cost."
His face quivered before these blows, but all he said was, "I must dree my dreed."
"G.o.d is merciful," I went on, "and these things need not be. He is more merciful to you, sir, than to some, for the storm that He sent to save you is ruining them. And yet the farmers are to-day thanking Him for every pound of wool, every blade of corn He has left them, while you turn from Him because He would save you, not in your way, but in His. It was His hand that stayed your marriage. He meant Babbie for the earl; and if it is on her part a loveless match, she only suffers for her own sins. Of that scene on the hill no one in Thrums, or in the glen, need ever know. Rintoul will see to it that the gypsies vanish from these parts forever, and you may be sure the Spittal will soon be shut up. He and McKenzie have as much reason as yourself to be silent. You, sir, must go back to your congregation, who have heard as yet only vague rumors that your presence will dispel. Even your mother will remain ignorant of what has happened. Your absence from the prayer-meeting you can leave to me to explain."
He was so silent that I thought him mine, but his first words undeceived me.
"I thought I had nowhere so keen a friend," he said; "but, Mr. Ogilvy, it is devil"s work you are pleading. Am I to return to my people to act a living lie before them to the end of my days? Do you really think that G.o.d devastated a glen to give me a chance of becoming a villain? No, sir, I am in His hands, and I will do what I think right."
"You will be dishonored," I said, "in the sight of G.o.d and man."
"Not in G.o.d"s sight," he replied. "It was a sinless marriage, Mr.
Ogilvy, and I do not regret it. G.o.d ordained that she and I should love each other, and He put it into my power to save her from that man. I took her as my wife before Him, and in His eyes I am her husband. Knowing that, sir, how could I return to Thrums without her?"
I had no answer ready for him. I knew that in my grief for Margaret I had been advocating an unworthy course, but I would not say so. I went gloomily to the door, and there, presently, his hand fell on my shoulder.
"Your advice came too late, at any rate," he said. "You forget that the precentor was on the hill and saw everything."
It was he who had forgotten to tell me this, and to me it was the most direful news of all.
"My G.o.d!" I cried. "He will have gone to your mother and told her."
And straightway I began to lace my boots.
"Where are you going?" he asked, staring at me.
"To Thrums," I answered harshly.
"You said that to venture out into the glen was to court death," he reminded me.
"What of that?" I said, and hastily put on my coat.
"Mr. Ogilvy," he cried, "I will not allow you to do this for me."
"For you?" I said bitterly. "It is not for you."
I would have gone at once, but he got in front of me, asking, "Did you ever know my mother?"
"Long ago," I answered shortly, and he said no more, thinking, I suppose, that he knew all. He limped to the door with me, and I had only advanced a few steps when I understood better than before what were the dangers I was to venture into. Since I spoke to Waster Lunny the river had risen several feet, and even the hillocks in his turnip-field were now submerged. The mist was creeping down the hills.
But what warned me most sharply that the flood was not satisfied yet was the top of the school-house dike; it was lined with field-mice. I turned back, and Gavin, mistaking my meaning, said I did wisely.