Indeed, the contrast between Rintoul and Gavin was
now impressive. When Tosh signed that the weavers
had done their all and failed, the two men looked
in each other’s faces, and Gavin’s face
was firm and the earl’s working convulsively.
The people had given up attempting to communicate
with Gavin save by signs, for though they heard his
sonorous voice, when he pitched it at them, they saw
that he caught few words of theirs. “He
heard our skirls,” Birse said, “but couldna
grip the words ony mair than we could hear the earl.
And yet we screamed, and the minister didna. I’ve
heard o’ Highlandmen wi’ the same gift,
so that they could be heard across a glen.”
“We must prepare for death,” Gavin said
solemnly to the earl, “and it is for your own
sake that I again ask you to tell me the truth.
Worldly matters are nothing to either of us now, but
I implore you not to carry a lie into your Maker’s
presence.”
“I will not give up hope,” was all Rintoul’s
answer, and he again tried to pierce the mist with
offers of reward. After that he became doggedly
silent, fixing his eyes on the ground at his feet.
I have a notion that he had made up his mind to confess
the truth about Babbie when the water had eaten the
island as far as the point at which he was now looking.
End of the twenty-four hours.
Out of the mist came the voice of Gavin, clear and
strong—
“If you hear me, hold up your hands as a sign.”
They heard, and none wondered at his voice crossing
the chasm while theirs could not. When the mist
cleared, they were seen to have done as he bade them.
Many hands remained up for a time because the people
did not remember to bring them down, so great was
the awe that had fallen on all, as if the Lord was
near.
Gavin took his watch from his pocket, and he said—
“I am to fling this to you. You will give
it to Mr. Ogilvy, the schoolmaster, as a token of
the love I bear him.”
The watch was caught by James Langlands, and handed
to Peter Tosh, the chief elder present.
“To Mr. Ogilvy,” Gavin continued, “you
will also give the chain. You will take it off
my neck when you find the body.
“To each of my elders, and to Hendry Munn, kirk
officer, and to my servant Jean, I leave a book, and
they will go to my study and choose it for themselves.
“I also leave a book for Nanny Webster, and
I charge you, Peter Tosh, to take it to her, though
she be not a member of my church.
“The pictorial Bible with ‘To my son on
his sixth birthday’ on it, I bequeath to Rob
Dow. No, my mother will want to keep that.
I give to Rob Dow my Bible with the brass clasp.
“It is my wish that every family in the congregation
should have some little thing to remember me by.
This you will tell my mother.
