________________________________________________
_ How had the Egyptian been spirited here from the Spittal? I did
not ask the question. To interest myself in Babbie at that dire
hour of Margaret's life would have been as impossible to me as to
sit down to a book. To others, however, it is only an old woman on
whom the parlor door of the manse has closed, only a garrulous
dominie that is in pain outside it. Your eyes are on the young
wife.
When Babbie was plucked off the hill, she thought as little as
Gavin that her captor was Rob Dow. Close as he was to her, he was
but a shadow until she screamed the second time, when he pressed
her to the ground and tied his neckerchief over her mouth. Then,
in the moment that power of utterance was taken from her, she saw
the face that had startled her at Nanny's window. Half-carried,
she was borne forward rapidly, until some one seemed to rise out
of the broom and strike them both. They had only run against the
doctor's trap; and huddling her into it, Dow jumped up beside her.
He tied her hands together with a cord. For a time the horse
feared the darkness in front more than the lash behind; but when
the rains became terrific, it rushed ahead wildly--probably with
its eyes shut.
In three minutes Babbie went through all the degrees of fear. In
the first she thought Lord Rintoul had kidnapped her; but no
sooner had her captor resolved himself into Dow, drunk with the
events of the day and night, than in the earl's hands would have
lain safety. Next, Dow was forgotten in the dread of a sudden
death which he must share. And lastly, the rain seemed to be
driving all other horrors back, that it might have her for its
own. Her perils increased to the unbearable as quickly as an iron
in the fire passes through the various stages between warmth and
white heat. Then she had to do something; and as she could not cry
out, she flung herself from the dogcart. She fell heavily in
Caddani Wood, but the rain would not let her lie there stunned. It
beat her back to consciousness, and she sat up on her knees and
listened breathlessly, staring in the direction the trap had
taken, as if her eyes could help her ears.
All night, I have said, the rain poured, but those charges only
rode down the deluge at intervals, as now and again one wave
greater than the others stalks over the sea. In the first lull it
appeared to Babbie that the storm had swept by, leaving her to
Dow. Now she heard the rubbing of the branches, and felt the torn
leaves falling on her gown. She rose to feel her way out of the
wood with her bound hands, then sank in terror, for some one had
called her name. Next moment she was up again, for the voice was
Gavin's, who was hurrying after her, as he thought, down
Windyghoul. He was no farther away than a whisper might have
carried on a still night, but she dared not pursue him, for
already Dow was coming back. She could not see him, but she heard
the horse whinny and the rocking of the dogcart. Dow was now at
the brute's head, and probably it tried to bite him, for he struck
it, crying:
"Would you? Stand still till I find her. I heard her move this
minute."
Babbie crouched upon a big stone and sat motionless while he
groped for her. Her breathing might have been tied now, as well as
her mouth. She heard him feeling for her, first with his feet and
then with his hands, and swearing when his head struck against a
tree.
"I ken you're within hearing," he muttered, "and I'll hae you yet.
I have a gully-knife in my hand. Listen!"
He severed a whin-stalk with the knife, and Babbie seemed to see
the gleam of the blade.
"What do I mean by wanting to kill you?" he said, as if she had
asked the question. "Do you no ken wha said to me, 'Kill this
woman?' It was the Lord. 'I winna kill her,' I said, 'but I'll
cart her out o' the country.' 'Kill her,' says He; 'why
encumbereth she the ground?'"
He resumed his search, but with new tactics. "I see you now," he
would cry, and rush forward perhaps within a yard of her. Then she
must have screamed had she had the power. When he tied that
neckerchief round her mouth he prolonged her life.
Then came the second hurricane of rain, so appalling that had
Babbie's hands been free she would have pressed them to her ears.
For a full minute she forgot Dow's presence. A living thing
touched her face. The horse had found her. She recoiled from it,
but its frightened head pressed heavily on her shoulder. She rose
and tried to steal away, but the brute followed, and as the rain
suddenly exhausted itself she heard the dragging of the dogcart.
She had to halt.
Again she heard Dow's voice. Perhaps he had been speaking
throughout the roar of the rain. If so, it must have made him deaf
to his own words. He groped for the horse's head, and presently
his hand touched Babbie's dress, then jumped from it, so suddenly
had he found her. No sound escaped him, and she was beginning to
think it possible that he had mistaken her for a bush when his
hand went over her face. He was making sure of his discovery.
"The Lord has delivered you into my hands," he said in a low
voice, with some awe in it. Then he pulled her to the ground, and,
sitting down beside her, rocked himself backward and forward, his
hands round his knees. She would have bartered the world for power
to speak to him.
"He wouldna hear o' my just carting you to some other
countryside," he said confidentially. "'The devil would just blaw
her back again, says He, 'therefore kill her.' 'And if I kill
her,' I says, 'they'll hang me.' 'You can hang yoursel',' says He.
'What wi'?' I speirs. 'Wi' the reins o' the dogcart,' says He.
'They would break,' says I. 'Weel, weel,' says He, 'though they do
hang you, nobody'll miss you.' 'That's true,' says I, 'and You are
a just God.'"
He stood up and confronted her.
"Prisoner at the bar," he said, "hae ye onything to say why
sentence of death shouldna be pronounced against you? She doesna
answer. She kens death is her deserts."
By this time he had forgotten probably why his victim was dumb.
"Prisoner at the bar, hand back to me the soul o' Gavin Dishart.
You winna? Did the devil, your master, summon you to him and say,
'Either that noble man or me maun leave Thrums?' He did. And did
you, or did you no, drag that minister, when under your spell, to
the hill, and there marry him ower the tongs? You did. Witnesses,
Rob Dow and Tammas Whamond."
She was moving from him on her knees, meaning when out of arm's
reach to make a dash for life.
"Sit down," he grumbled, "or how can you expect a fair trial?
Prisoner at the bar, you have been found guilty of witchcraft."
For the first time his voice faltered.
"That's the difficulty, for witches canna die, except by burning
or drowning. There's no blood in you for my knife, and your neck
wouldna twist. Your master has brocht the rain to put out a' the
fires, and we'll hae to wait till it runs into a pool deep enough
to drown you.
"I wonder at You, God. Do You believe her master'll mak' the pool
for her? He'll rather stop his rain. Mr. Dishart said You was mair
powerful than the devil, but--it doesna look like it. If You had
the power, how did You no stop this woman working her will on the
minister? You kent what she was doing, for You ken a' things. Mr.
Dishart says You ken a' things. If You do, the mair shame to You.
Would a shepherd, that could help it. let dogs worry his sheep?
Kill her! It's fine to cry 'Kill her,' but whaur's the bonfire,
whaur's the pool? You that made the heaven and the earth and all
that in them is, can You no set fire to some wet whins, or change
this stane into a mill-dam?"
He struck the stone with his fist, and then gave a cry of
exultation. He raised the great slab in his arms and flung it from
him. In that moment Babbie might have run away, but she fainted.
Almost simultaneously with Dow she knew this was the stone which
covered the Caddam well. When she came to, Dow was speaking, and
his voice had become solemn.
"You said your master was mair powerful than mine, and I said it
too, and all the time you was sitting here wi' the very pool
aneath you that I have been praying for. Listen!"
He dropped a stone into the well, and she heard it strike the
water.
"What are you shaking at?" he said in reproof. "Was it no yoursel'
that chose the spot? Lassie, say your prayers. Are you saying
them?"
He put his hand over her face, to feel if her lips were moving,
and tore off the neckerchief.
And then again the rain came between them. In that rain one could
not think. Babbie did not know that she had bitten through the
string that tied her hands. She planned no escape. But she flung
herself at the place where Dow had been standing. He was no longer
there, and she fell heavily, and was on her feet again in an
instant and running recklessly. Trees intercepted her, and she
thought they were Dow, and wrestled with them. By and by she fell
into Windyghoul, and there she crouched until all her senses were
restored to her, when she remembered that she had been married
lately.
How long Dow was in discovering that she had escaped, and whether
he searched for her, no one knows. After a time he jumped into the
dogcart again, and drove aimlessly through the rain. That wild
journey probably lasted two hours, and came to an abrupt end only
when a tree fell upon the trap. The horse galloped off, but one of
Dow's legs was beneath the tree, and there he had to lie helpless,
for though the leg was little injured, he could not extricate
himself. A night and day passed, and he believed that he must die;
but even in this plight he did not forget the man he loved. He
found a piece of slate, and in the darkness cut these words on it
with his knife:
"Me being about to die, I solemnly swear I didna see the minister
marrying an Egyptian on the hill this nicht. May I burn in Hell if
this is no true."
(Signed) "ROB DOW."
This document he put in his pocket, and so preserved proof of what
he was perjuring himself to deny. _
Read next: Chapter XL - Babbie and Margaret--Defence of the Manse continued
Read previous: Chapter XXXVIII - Thrums during the Twenty-four Hours--Defence of the Manse
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