The Little Minister Page 6

  Chapter Five.

  A WARLIKE CHAPTER, CULMINATING IN THE FLOUTING OF THE MINISTER BY THEWOMAN.

  "Mr. Dishart!"

  Jean had clutched at Gavin in Bank Street. Her hair was streaming, andher wrapper but half buttoned.

  "Oh, Mr. Dishart, look at the mistress! I couldna keep her in themanse."

  Gavin saw his mother beside him, bare-headed, trembling.

  "How could I sit still, Gavin, and the town full o' the skirls ofwomen and bairns? Oh, Gavin, what can I do for them? They will suffermost this night."

  As Gavin took her hand he knew that Margaret felt for the people morethan he.

  "But you must go home, mother," he said, "and leave me to do my duty.I will take you myself if you will not go with Jean. Be careful ofher, Jean."

  "Ay, will I," Jean answered, then burst into tears. "Mr. Dishart," shecried, "if they take my father they'd best take my mither too."

  The two women went back to the manse, where Jean relit the fire,having nothing else to do, and boiled the kettle, while Margaretwandered in anguish from room to room.

  THE WARNING.]

  Men nearly naked ran past Gavin, seeking to escape from Thrums by thefields he had descended. When he shouted to them they only ran faster.A Tillyloss weaver whom he tried to stop struck him savagely and spedpast to the square. In Bank Street, which was full of people at onemoment and empty the next, the minister stumbled over old CharlesYuill.

  "Take me and welcome," Yuill cried, mistaking Gavin for the enemy. Hehad only one arm through the sleeve of his jacket, and his feet werebare.

  "I am Mr. Dishart. Are the soldiers already in the square, Yuill?"

  "They'll be there in a minute."

  The man was so weak that Gavin had to hold him.

  "Be a man, Charles. You have nothing to fear. It is not such as youthe soldiers have come for. If need be, I can swear that you had notthe strength, even if you had the will, to join in the weavers'riot."

  "For Godsake, Mr. Dishart," Yuill cried, his hands chattering onGavin's coat, "dinna swear that. My laddie was in the thick o' theriot; and if he's ta'en there's the poor's-house gaping for Kitty andme, for I couldna weave half a web a week. If there's a warrant aginonybody o' the name of Yuill, swear it's me; swear I'm a desperatecharacter, swear I'm michty strong for all I look palsied; and if whenthey take me, my courage breaks down, swear the mair, swear Iconfessed my guilt to you on the Book."

  As Yuill spoke the quick rub-a-dub of a drum was heard.

  "The soldiers!" Gavin let go his hold of the old man, who hastenedaway to give himself up.

  "That's no the sojers," said a woman; "it's the folk gathering in thesquare. This'll be a watery Sabbath in Thrums."

  "Rob Dow," shouted Gavin, as Dow flung past with a scythe in his hand,"lay down that scythe."

  "To hell wi' religion!" Rob retorted, fiercely; "it spoils a' thing."

  "Lay down that scythe; I command you."

  Rob stopped undecidedly, then cast the scythe from him, but itsrattle on the stones was more than he could bear.

  "I winna," he cried, and, picking it up, ran to the square.

  An upper window in Bank Street opened, and Dr. McQueen put out hishead. He was smoking as usual.

  "Mr. Dishart," he said, "you will return home at once if you are awise man; or, better still, come in here. You can do nothing withthese people to-night."

  "I can stop their fighting."

  "You will only make black blood between them and you."

  "Dinna heed him, Mr. Dishart," cried some women.

  "You had better heed him," cried a man.

  "I will not desert my people," Gavin said.

  "Listen, then, to my prescription," the doctor replied. "Drive thatgypsy lassie out of the town before the soldiers reach it. She isfiring the men to a red-heat through sheer devilry."

  "She brocht the news, or we would have been nipped in our beds," somepeople cried.

  "Does any one know who she is?" Gavin demanded, but all shook theirheads. The Egyptian, as they called her, had never been seen in theseparts before.

  "Has any other person seen the soldiers?" he asked. "Perhaps this is afalse alarm."

  "Several have seen them within the last few minutes," the doctoranswered. "They came from Tilliedrum, and were advancing on us fromthe south, but when they heard that we had got the alarm they stoppedat the top of the brae, near T'nowhead's farm. Man, you would takethese things more coolly if you smoked."

  "Show me this woman," Gavin said sternly to those who had beenlistening. Then a stream of people carried him into the square.

  The square has altered little, even in these days of enterprise,when Tillyloss has become Newton Bank, and the Craft Head CroftTerrace, with enamelled labels on them for the guidance of slowpeople, who forget their address and have to run to the end of thestreet and look up every time they write a letter. The stones onwhich the butter-wives sat have disappeared, and with them the claywalls and the outside stairs. Gone, too, is the stair of thetown-house, from the top of which the drummer roared the gossip ofthe week on Sabbaths to country folk, to the scandal of all whoknew that the proper thing on that day is to keep your blinds down;but the town-house itself, round and red, still makes exit to thesouth troublesome. Wherever streets meet the square there is ahouse in the centre of them, and thus the heart of Thrums is abox, in which the stranger finds himself suddenly, wondering atfirst how he is to get out, and presently how he got in.

  To Gavin, who never before had seen a score of people in the square atonce, here was a sight strange and terrible. Andrew Struthers, an oldsoldier, stood on the outside stair of the town-house, shouting wordsof command to some fifty weavers, many of them scantily clad, but allarmed with pikes and poles. Most were known to the little minister,but they wore faces that were new to him. Newcomers joined the bodyevery moment. If the drill was clumsy the men were fierce. Hundreds ofpeople gathered around, some screaming, some shaking their fists atthe old soldier, many trying to pluck their relatives out of danger.Gavin could not see the Egyptian. Women and old men, fighting for thepossession of his ear, implored him to disperse the armed band. He ranup the town-house stair, and in a moment it had become a pulpit.

  "Dinna dare to interfere, Mr. Dishart," Struthers said savagely.

  "Andrew Struthers," said Gavin solemnly, "in the name of God I orderyou to leave me alone. If you don't," he added ferociously, "I'llfling you over the stair."

  "Dinna heed him, Andrew," some one shouted, and another cried, "Hecanna understand our sufferings; he has dinner ilka day."

  Struthers faltered, however, and Gavin cast his eye over the armedmen.

  "Rob Dow," he said, "William Carmichael, Thomas Whamond, William Munn,Alexander Hobart, Henders Haggart, step forward."

  These were Auld Lichts, and when they found that the minister wouldnot take his eyes off them, they obeyed, all save Rob Dow.

  "Never mind him, Rob," said the atheist, Cruickshanks, "it's betterplaying cards in hell than singing psalms in heaven."

  "Joseph Cruickshanks," responded Gavin grimly, "you will find no cardsdown there."

  Then Rob also came to the foot of the stair. There was some angrymuttering from the crowd, and young Charles Yuill exclaimed, "Curseyou, would you lord it ower us on week-days as weel as on Sabbaths?"

  "Lay down your weapons," Gavin said to the six men.

  They looked at each other. Hobart slipped his pike behind his back.

  "I hae no weapon," he said slily.

  "Let me hae my fling this nicht," Dow entreated, "and I'll promise tobide sober for a twelvemonth."

  "Oh, Rob, Rob!" the minister said bitterly, "are you the man I prayedwith a few hours ago?"

  The scythe fell from Rob's hands.

  "Down wi' your pikes," he roared to his companions, "or I'll brain youwi' them."

  "Ay, lay them down," the precentor whispered, "but keep your feet onthem."

  Then the minister, who was shaking with excitement, though he
did notknow it, stretched forth his arms for silence, and it came so suddenlyas to frighten the people in the neighboring streets.

  "If he prays we're done for," cried young Charles Yuill, but even inthat hour many of the people were unbonneted.

  "Oh, Thou who art the Lord of hosts," Gavin prayed, "we are in Thyhands this night. These are Thy people, and they have sinned; but Thouart a merciful God, and they were sore tried, and knew not what theydid. To Thee, our God, we turn for deliverance, for without Thee weare lost."

  The little minister's prayer was heard all round the square, and manyweapons were dropped as an Amen to it.

  "If you fight," cried Gavin, brightening as he heard the clatter ofthe iron on the stones, "your wives and children may be shot in thestreets. These soldiers have come for a dozen of you; will you bebenefited if they take away a hundred?"

  "Oh, hearken to him," cried many women.

  "I winna," answered a man, "for I'm ane o' the dozen. Whaur's theEgyptian?"

  "Here."

  Gavin saw the crowd open, and the woman of Windyghoul come out of it,and, while he should have denounced her, he only blinked, for oncemore her loveliness struck him full in the eyes. She was beside him onthe stair before he became a minister again.

  "How dare you, woman?" he cried; but she flung a rowan berry at him.

  "If I were a man," she exclaimed, addressing the people, "I wouldnalet myself be catched like a mouse in a trap."

  "We winna," some answered.

  "What kind o' women are you," cried the Egyptian, her face gleaming asshe turned to her own sex, "that bid your men folk gang to gaol when abold front would lead them to safety? Do you want to be husbandlessand hameless?"

  "Disperse, I command you!" cried Gavin. "This abandoned woman isinciting you to riot."

  "Dinna heed this little man," the Egyptian retorted.

  It is curious to know that even at that anxious moment Gavin wincedbecause she called him little.

  "She has the face of a mischief-maker," he shouted, "and her words areevil."

  "You men and women o' Thrums," she responded, "ken that I wish youweel by the service I hae done you this nicht. Wha telled you thesojers was coming?"

  "It was you; it was you!"

  "Ay, and mony a mile I ran to bring the news. Listen, and I'll tellyou mair."

  "She has a false tongue," Gavin cried; "listen not to the brazenwoman."

  "What I have to tell," she said, "is as true as what I've telledalready, and how true that is you a' ken. You're wondering how thesojers has come to a stop at the tap o' the brae instead o' marchingon the town. Here's the reason. They agreed to march straucht to thesquare if the alarm wasna given, but if it was they were to break intosmall bodies and surround the town so that you couldna get out. That'swhat they're doing now."

  At this the screams were redoubled, and many men lifted the weaponsthey had dropped.

  "Believe her not," cried Gavin. "How could a wandering gypsy know allthis?"

  "Ay, how can you ken?" some demanded.

  "It's enough that I do ken," the Egyptian answered. "And this mair Iken, that the captain of the soldiers is confident he'll nab every oneo' you that's wanted unless you do one thing."

  "What is 't?"

  THE SOLDIERS.]

  "If you a' run different ways you're lost, but if you keep thegitheryou'll be able to force a road into the country, whaur you canscatter. That's what he's fleid you'll do."

  "Then it's what we will do."

  "It is what you will not do," Gavin said passionately. "The truth isnot in this wicked woman."

  But scarcely had he spoken when he knew that startling news hadreached the square. A murmur arose on the skirts of the mob, and sweptwith the roar of the sea towards the town-house. A detachment of thesoldiers were marching down the Roods from the north.

  "There's some coming frae the east-town end," was the next intelligence;"and they've gripped Sanders Webster, and auld Charles Yuill hasgiven himsel' up."

  "You see, you see," the gypsy said, flashing triumph at Gavin.

  "Lay down your weapons," Gavin cried, but his power over the peoplehad gone.

  "The Egyptian spoke true," they shouted; "dinna heed the minister."

  Gavin tried to seize the gypsy by the shoulders, but she slipped pasthim down the stair, and crying "Follow me!" ran round the town-houseand down the brae.

  "Woman!" he shouted after her, but she only waved her arms scornfully.The people followed her, many of the men still grasping their weapons,but all in disorder. Within a minute after Gavin saw the gleam of thering on her finger, as she waved her hands, he and Dow were alone inthe square.

  "She's an awfu' woman that," Rob said. "I saw her lauching."

  Gavin ground his teeth.

  "Rob Dow," he said, slowly, "if I had not found Christ I would havethrottled that woman. You saw how she flouted me?"