Chapter 6 - Page 2

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.

"Woman!" he cried again.

"You are a dear," she said, and vanished.

By the time Gavin was breathing freely again the lock-up was
crammed with prisoners, and the Riot Act had been read from the
town-house stair. It is still remembered that the baron-bailie, to
whom this duty fell, had got no further than, "Victoria, by the
Grace of God," when the paper was struck out of his hands.

When a stirring event occurs up here we smack our lips over it for
months, and so I could still write a history of that memorable
night in Thrums. I could tell how the doctor, a man whose
shoulders often looked as if they had been caught in a shower of
tobacco ash, brought me the news to the school-house, and now,
when I crossed the fields to dumfounder Waster Lunny with it, I
found Birse, the post, reeling off the story to him as fast as a
fisher could let out line. I know who was the first woman on the
Marywell brae to hear the horn, and how she woke her husband, and
who heard it first at the Denhead and the Tenements, with what
they immediately said and did. I had from Dite Deuchar's own lips
the curious story of his sleeping placidly throughout the whole
disturbance, and on wakening in the morning yoking to his loom as
usual; and also his statement that such ill-luck was enough to
shake a man's faith in religion. The police had knowledge