“No; you only amused me,” she said, like
one determined to stint nothing of the truth.
“Even at the well I laughed at your vows.”
This wounded Gavin afresh, wretched as her story had
made him, and he said tragically, “You have
never cared for me at all.”
“Oh, always, always,” she answered, “since
I knew what love was; and it was you who taught me.”
Even in his misery he held his head high with pride.
At least she did love him.
“And then,” Babbie said, hiding her face,
“I could not tell you what I was because I knew
you would loathe me. I could only go away.”
She looked at him forlornly through her tears, and
then moved toward the door. He had sunk upon
a stool, his face resting on the table, and it was
her intention to slip away unnoticed. But he
heard the latch rise, and jumping up, said sharply,
“Babbie, I cannot give you up.”
She stood in tears, swinging the door unconsciously
with her hand.
“Don’t say that you love me still,”
she cried; and then, letting her hand fall from the
door, added imploringly, “Oh, Gavin, do you?”
The meeting for rain.
Meanwhile the Auld Lichts were in church, waiting
for their minister, and it was a full meeting, because
nearly every well in Thrums had been scooped dry by
anxious palms. Yet not all were there to ask
God’s rain for themselves. Old Charles Yuill
was in his pew, after dreaming thrice that he would
break up with the drought; and Bell Christison had
come, though her man lay dead at home, and she thought
it could matter no more to her how things went in
the world.
You, who do not love that little congregation, would
have said that they were waiting placidly. But
probably so simple a woman as Meggy Rattray could
have deceived you into believing that because her
eyes were downcast she did not notice who put the three-penny-bit
in the plate. A few men were unaware that the
bell was working overtime, most of them farmers with
their eyes on the windows, but all the women at least
were wondering. They knew better, however, than
to bring their thoughts to their faces, and none sought
to catch another’s eye. The men-folk looked
heavily at their hats in the seats in front.
Even when Hendry Munn, instead of marching to the
pulpit with the big Bible in his hands, came as far
as the plate and signed to Peter Tosh, elder, that
he was wanted in the vestry, you could not have guessed
how every woman there, except Bell Christison, wished
she was Peter Tosh. Peter was so taken aback
that he merely gaped at Hendry, until suddenly he knew
that his five daughters were furious with him, when
he dived for his hat and staggered to the vestry with
his mouth open. His boots cheeped all the way,
but no one looked up.
