Chapter 17 - Page 2

but no higher. I haud a heap."

"Drunk again, after all your promises to the minister! And you
said yoursel' that he had pulled you out o' hell by the root."

"It's himsel' that has flung me back again," Rob said, wildly.
"Jean Baxter, what does it mean when a minister carries flowers in
his pouch; ay, and takes them out to look at them ilka minute?"

"How do you ken about the holly?" asked Jean, off her guard.

"You limmer," said Dow, "you've been in his pouches."

"It's a lie!" cried the outraged Jean. "I just saw the holly this
morning in a jug on his chimley."

"Carefully put by? Is it hod on the chimley? Does he stand looking
at it? Do you tell me he's fond-like o't?"

"Mercy me!" Jean exclaimed, beginning to shake; "wha is she, Rob
Dow?"

"Let me see it first in its jug," Rob answered, slyly, "and syne I
may tell you." This was not the only time Jean had been asked to
show the minister's belongings. Snecky Hobart, among others, had
tried on Gavin's hat in the manse kitchen, and felt queer for some
time afterwards. Women had been introduced on tiptoe to examine
the handle of his umbrella. But Rob had not come to admire. He
snatched the holly from Jean's hands, and casting it on the ground
pounded it with his heavy boots, crying, "Greet as you like, Jean.
That's the end o' his flowers, and if I had the tawpie he got them
frae I would serve her in the same way."

"I'll tell him what you've done," said terrified Jean, who had
tried to save the berries at the expense of her fingers.

"Tell him," Dow roared; "and tell him what I said too. Ay, and
tell him I was at the Kaims yestreen. Tell him I'm hunting high
and low for an Egyptian woman."

He flung recklessly out of the courtyard, leaving Jean looking
blankly at the mud that had been holly lately. Not his act of
sacrilege was distressing her, but his news. Were these berries a
love token? Had God let Rob Dow say they were a gypsy's love
token, and not slain him?

That Rob spoke of the Egyptian of the riots Jean never doubted. It
was known that the minister had met this woman in Nanny Webster's
house, but was it not also known that he had given her such a
talking-to as she could never come above? Many could repeat the
words in which he had announced to Nanny that his wealthy friends
in Glasgow were to give her all she needed. They could also tell
how majestic he looked when he turned the Egyptian out of the
house. In short, Nanny having kept her promise of secrecy, the
people had been forced to construct the scene in the mud