Meanwhile, Gavin, unaware that talk about him and
a woman unknown had broken out in Thrums, was gazing,
sometimes lovingly and again with scorn, at a little
bunch of holly-berries which Jean had gathered from
her father’s garden. Once she saw him fling
them out of his window, and then she rejoiced.
But an hour afterwards she saw him pick them up, and
then she mourned. Nevertheless, to her great
delight, he preached his third sermon against Woman
on the following Sabbath. It was universally
acknowledged to be the best of the series. It
was also the last.
Caddam—love leading to
A rupture.
Gavin told himself not to go near the mud house on
the following Monday; but he went. The distance
is half a mile, and the time he took was two hours.
This was owing to his setting out due west to reach
a point due north; yet with the intention of deceiving
none save himself. His reason had warned him
to avoid the Egyptian, and his desires had consented
to be dragged westward because they knew he had started
too soon. When the proper time came they knocked
reason on the head and carried him straight to Caddam.
Here reason came to, and again began to state its
case. Desires permitted him to halt, as if to
argue the matter out, but were thus tolerant merely
because from where he stood he could see Nanny’s
doorway. When Babbie emerged from it reason seems
to have made one final effort, for Gavin quickly took
that side of a tree which is loved of squirrels at
the approach of an enemy. He looked round the
tree-trunk at her, and then reason discarded him.
The gypsy had two empty pans in her hands, For a second
she gazed in the minister’s direction, then
demurely leaped the ditch of leaves that separated
Nanny’s yard from Caddam, and strolled into the
wood. Discovering with indignation that he had
been skulking behind the tree, Gavin came into the
open. How good of the Egyptian, he reflected,
to go to the well for water, and thus save the old
woman’s arms! Reason shouted from near the
manse (he only heard the echo) that he could still
make up on it. “Come along.” said
his desires, and marched him prisoner to the well.
The path which Babbie took that day is lost in blaeberry
leaves now, and my little maid and I lately searched
for an hour before we found the well. It was
dry, choked with broom and stones, and broken rusty
pans, but we sat down where Babbie and Gavin had talked,
and I stirred up many memories. Probably two of
those pans, that could be broken in the hands to-day
like shortbread, were Nanny’s, and almost certainly
the stones are fragments from the great slab that
used to cover the well. Children like to peer
into wells to see what the world is like at the other
side, and so this covering was necessary. Rob
Angus was the strong man who bore the stone to Caddam,
flinging it a yard before him at a time. The
well had also a wooden lid with leather hinges, and
over this the stone was dragged.
