Chapter 21

NIGHT--MARGARET--FLASHING OF A LANTERN.

That evening the little minister sat silently in his parlour.
Darkness came, and with it weavers rose heavy-eyed from their
looms, sleepy children sought their mothers, and the gate of the
field above the manse fell forward to let cows pass to their byre;
the great Bible was produced in many homes, and the ten o'clock
bell clanged its last word to the night. Margaret had allowed the
lamp to burn low. Thinking that her boy slept, she moved softly to
his side and spread her shawl over his knees. He had forgotten
her. The doctor's warnings scarcely troubled him. He was Babbie's
lover. The mystery of her was only a veil hiding her from other
men, and he was looking through it upon the face of his beloved.

It was a night of long ago, but can you not see my dear Margaret
still as she bends over her son? Not twice in many days dared the
minister snatch a moment's sleep from grey morning to midnight,
and, when this did happen, he jumped up by-and-by in shame, to
revile himself for an idler and ask his mother wrathfully why she
had not tumbled him out of his chair? Tonight Margaret was divided
between a desire to let him sleep and a fear of his self-reproach
when he awoke; and so, perhaps, the tear fell that roused him.

"I did not like to waken you," Margaret said, apprehensively. "You
must have been very tired, Gavin?"

"I was not sleeping, mother," he said, slowly. "I was only
thinking."

"Ah, Gavin, you never rise from your loom. It is hardly fair that
your hands should be so full of other people's troubles."

"They only fill one hand, mother; I carry the people's joys in the
other hand, and that keeps me erect, like a woman between her pan
and pitcher. I think the joys have outweighed the sorrows since we
came here."

"It has been all joy to me, Gavin, for you never tell me of the
sorrows. An old woman has no right to be so happy."

"Old woman, mother!" said Gavin. But his indignation was vain.
Margaret was an old woman. I made her old before her time.

"As for these terrible troubles," he went on, "I forget them the
moment I enter the garden and see you at your window. And, maybe,
I keep some of the joys from you as well as the troubles."

Words about Babbie leaped to his mouth, but with an effort he
restrained them. He must not tell his mother of her until Babbie
of her free will had told him all there was to tell.

"I have been a selfish woman, Gavin."

"You selfish, mother!" Gavin said, smiling. "Tell me when you did
not think of others before yourself?"

"Always,