When the soldiers reached the town-house, where they locked up their prisoners, Dow was skulking east-ward, and Gavin running down the brae.

“They’re fechting,” he was told, “they’re fechting on the brae, the sojers is firing, a man’s killed!”

But this was an exaggeration.

The brae, though short, is very steep.  There is a hedge on one side of it, from which the land falls away, and on the other side a hillock.  Gavin reached the scene to see the soldiers marching down the brae, guarding a small body of policemen.  The armed weavers were retreating before them.  A hundred women or more were on the hillock, shrieking and gesticulating.  Gavin joined them, calling on them not to fling the stones they had begun to gather.

The armed men broke into a rabble, flung down their weapons, and fled back towards the town-house.  Here they almost ran against the soldiers in the square, who again forced them into the brae.  Finding themselves about to be wedged between the two forces, some crawled through the hedge, where they were instantly seized by policemen.  Others sought to climb up the hillock and then escape into the country.  The policemen clambered after them.  The men were too frightened to fight, but a woman seized a policeman by the waist and flung him head foremost among the soldiers.  One of these shouted “Fire!” but the captain cried “No.”  Then came showers of missiles from the women.  They stood their ground and defended the retreat of the scared men.

Who flung the first stone is not known, but it is believed to have been the Egyptian.  The policemen were recalled, and the whole body ordered to advance down the brae.  Thus the weavers who had not escaped at once were driven before them, and soon hemmed in between the two bodies of soldiers, when they were easily captured.  But for two minutes there was a thick shower of stones and clods of earth.

It was ever afterwards painful to Gavin to recall this scene, but less on account of the shower of stones than because of the flight of one divit in it.  He had been watching the handsome young captain, Halliwell, riding with his men; admiring him, too, for his coolness.  This coolness exasperated the gypsy, who twice flung at Halliwell and missed him.  He rode on smiling contemptuously.

“Oh, if I could only fling straight!” the Egyptian moaned.

Then she saw the minister by her side, and in the tick of a clock something happened that can never be explained.  For the moment Gavin was so lost in misery over the probable effect of the night’s rioting that he had forgotten where he was.  Suddenly the Egyptian’s beautiful face was close to his, and she pressed a divit into his hand, at the same time pointing at the officer, and whispering “Hit him.”

Gavin flung the clod of earth, and hit Halliwell on the head.

I say I cannot explain this.  I tell what happened, and add with thankfulness that only the Egyptian witnessed the deed.  Gavin, I suppose, had flung the divit before he could stay his hand.  Then he shrank in horror.