Chapter 16

CONTINUED MISBEHAVIOUR OF THE EGYPTIAN WOMAN.

BY the following Monday it was known at many looms that something
sat heavily on the Auld Licht minister's mind. On the previous day
he had preached his second sermon of warning to susceptible young
men, and his first mention of the word "woman" had blown even the
sleepy heads upright. Now he had salt fish for breakfast, and on
clearing the table Jean noticed that his knife and fork were
uncrossed. He was observed walking into a gooseberry bush by Susy
Linn, who possessed the pioneer spring-bed of Thrums, and always
knew when her man jumped into it by suddenly finding herself shot
to the ceiling. Lunan, the tinsmith, and two women, who had the
luck to be in the street at the time, saw him stopping at Dr.
McQueen's door, as if about to knock, and then turning smartly
away. His hat blew off in the school wynd, where a wind wanders
ever, looking for hats, and he chased it so passionately that Lang
Tammas went into Allardyce's smiddy to say--

"I dinna like it. Of course he couldna afford to lose his hat, but
he should hae run after it mair reverently."

Gavin, indeed, was troubled. He had avoided speaking of the
Egyptian to his mother. He had gone to McQueen's house to ask the
doctor to accompany him to the Kaims, but with the knocker in his
hand he changed his mind, and now he was at the place of meeting
alone. It was a day of thaw, nothing to be heard from a distance
but the swish of curling-stones through water on Rashie-bog, where
the match for the eldership was going on. Around him. Gavin saw
only dejected firs with drops of water falling listlessly from
them, clods of snow, and grass that rustled as if animals were
crawling through it. All the roads were slack.

I suppose no young man to whom society has not become a cheap
thing can be in Gavin's position, awaiting the coming of an
attractive girl, without giving thought to what he should say to
her. When in the pulpit or visiting the sick, words came in a rush
to the little minister, but he had to set his teeth to determine
what to say to the Egyptian.

This was because he had not yet decided which of two women she
was. Hardly had he started on one line of thought when she crossed
his vision in a new light, and drew him after her.

Her "Need that make any difference?" sang in his ear like another
divit, cast this time at religion itself, and now he spoke aloud,
pointing his finger at a fir: "I said at the mud house that I
believed you because I knew you. To my shame be it said that I
spoke falsely. How dared you bewitch me? In your presence I flung
away the precious hours in frivolity; I even forgot the Sabbath.
For this I have