Chapter 9 - Page 2

feel its effects more than she, temper being a weapon that
we hold by the blade. When he awoke and saw her in his room he
would pretend, unless he felt called upon to rage at her for self-
neglect, to be still asleep, and then be filled with tenderness
for her. A great writer has spoken sadly of the shock it would be
to a mother to know her boy as he really is, but I think she often
knows him better than he is known to cynical friends. We should be
slower to think that the man at his worst is the real man, and
certain that the better we are ourselves the less likely is he to
be at his worst in our company. Every time he talks away his own
character before us he is signifying contempt for ours.

On this morning Margaret only opened Gavin's door to stand and
look, for she was fearful of awakening him after his heavy night.
Even before she saw that he still slept she noticed with surprise
that, for the first time since he came to Thrums, he had put on
his shutters. She concluded that he had done this lest the light
should rouse him. He was not sleeping pleasantly, for now he put
his open hand before his face, as if to guard himself, and again
he frowned and seemed to draw back from something. He pointed his
finger sternly to the north, ordering the weavers, his mother
thought, to return to their homes, and then he muttered to himself
so that she heard the words, "And if thy right hand offend thee
cut it off, and cast it from thee, for it is profitable for thee
that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body
should be cast into hell." Then suddenly he bent forward, his eyes
open and fixed on the window. Thus he sat, for the space of half a
minute, like one listening with painful intentness. When he lay
back Margaret slipped away. She knew he was living the night over
again, but not of the divit his right hand had cast, nor of the
woman in the garden.

Gavin was roused presently by the sound of voices from Margaret's
room, where Jean, who had now gathered much news, was giving it to
her mistress. Jean's cheerfulness would have told him that her
father was safe had he not wakened to thoughts of the Egyptian. I
suppose he was at the window in an instant, unsnibbing the
shutters and looking out as cautiously as a burglar might have
looked in. The Egyptian was gone from the summer-seat. He drew a
great breath.

But his troubles were not over. He had just lifted his ewer of
water when these words from the kitchen capsized it:--

"Ay, an Egyptian. That's what the auld folk call a gypsy. Weel,
Mrs. Dishart, she led police and sojers sic a dance through Thrums
as would baffle description, though I kent the fits and fors o't
as I dinna. Ay, but they