Chapter 16 - Page 2

myself to blame. I am an unworthy preacher of the
Word. I sinned far more than you who have been brought up
godlessly from your cradle. Nevertheless, whoever you are, I call
upon you, before we part never to meet again, to repent of your--"

And then it was no mocker of the Sabbath he was addressing, but a
woman with a child's face, and there were tears in her eyes. "Do
you care?" she was saying, and again he answered, "Yes, I care."
This girl's name was not Woman, but Babbie.

Now Gavin made an heroic attempt to look upon both these women at
once. "Yes, I believe in you," he said to them, "but henceforth
you must send your money to Nanny by another messenger. You are a
gypsy and I am a minister; and that must part us. I refuse to see
you again. I am not angry with you, but as a minister--"

It was not the disappearance of one of the women that clipped this
argument short; it was Babbie singing--

"It fell on a day, on a bonny summer day,
When the corn grew green and yellow,
That there fell out a great dispute
Between Argyle and Airly.

"The Duke of Montrose has written to Argyle
To come in the morning early,
An' lead in his men by the back o' Dunkeld
To plunder the bonny house o' Airly."

"Where are you?" cried Gavin in bewilderment.

"I am watching you from my window so high," answered the Egyptian;
and then the minister, looking up, saw her peering at him from a
fir.

"How did you get up there?" he asked in amazement.

"On my broomstick," Babbie replied, and sang on--

"The lady looked o'er her window sae high,
And oh! but she looked weary,
And there she espied the great Argyle
Come to plunder the bonny house o' Airly."

"What are you doing there?" Gavin said, wrathfully.

"This is my home," she answered. "I told you I lived in a tree."

"Come down at once," ordered Gavin. To which the singer responded-
-

"'Come down, come down, Lady Margaret,' he says;
'Come down and kiss me fairly
Or before the morning clear day light
I'll no leave a standing stane in Airly.'"

"If you do not come down this instant," Gavin said in a rage, "and
give me what I was so foolish as to come for, I--"

The Egyptian broke in--

"'I wouldna kiss thee, great Argyle,
I wouldna kiss thee fairly;
I wouldna kiss thee, great Argyle,
Gin you shouldna leave a standing stane in Airly.'"

"You have deceived Nanny," Gavin cried, hotly, "and you have
brought me here to deride me. I will have no more to do with you."