The Little Minister

“Then it was against my better judgment,” said Gavin.

“I am glad of that,” said the gypsy. “Mr. Dishart, I do believe you like me all the time.”

“Can a man like a woman against his will?” Gavin blurted out.

“Of course he can,” said the Egyptian, speaking as one who knew. “That is the very nicest way to be liked.”

Seeing how agitated Gavin was, remorse filled her, and she said in a wheedling voice —

“It is all over, and no one will know.”

Passion sat on the minister’s brow, but he said nothing, for the gypsy’s face had changed with her voice, and the audacious woman was become a child.

“I am very sorry,” she said, as if he had caught her stealing jam. The hood had fallen back, and she looked pleadingly at him. She had the appearance of one who was entirely in his hands.

There was a torrent of words in Gavin, but only these trickled forth —

“I don’t understand you.”

“You are not angry any more?” pleaded the Egyptian.

“Angry!” he cried, with the righteous rage of one who when his leg is being sawn off is asked gently if it hurts him.

“I know you are,” she sighed, and the sigh meant that men are strange.

“Have you no respect for law and order?” demanded Gavin.

“Not much,” she answered, honestly.

He looked down the road to where the red-coats were still visible, and his face became hard. She read his thoughts.

“No,” she said, becoming a woman again, “It is not yet too late. Why don’t you shout to them?”

She was holding herself like a queen, but there was no stiffness in her. They might have been a pair of lovers, and she the wronged one. Again she looked 75 timidly at him, and became beautiful in a new way. Her eyes said that he was very cruel, and she was only keeping back her tears till he had gone. More dangerous than her face was her manner, which gave Gavin the privilege of making her unhappy; it permitted him to argue with her; it never implied that though he raged at her he must stand afar off; it called him a bully, but did not end the conversation.

Now (but perhaps I should not tell this) unless she is his wife a man is shot with a thrill of exultation every time a pretty woman allows him to upbraid her.

“I do not understand you,” Gavin repeated weakly, and the gypsy bent her head under this terrible charge.

“Only a few hours ago,” he continued, “you were a gypsy girl in a fantastic dress, barefooted – ”

The Egyptian’s bare foot at once peeped out mischievously from beneath the cloak, then again retired into hiding.

“You spoke as broadly,” complained the minister, somewhat taken aback by this apparition, “as any woman in Thrums, and now you fling a cloak over your shoulders, and immediately become a fine lady. Who are you?”

“Perhaps,” answered the Egyptian, “it is the cloak that has bewitched me.” She slipped out of it. “Ay, ay, ou losh!” she said, as if surprised, “it was just the cloak that did it, for now I’m a puir ignorant bit lassie again. My, certie, but claithes does make a differ to a woman!”

This was sheer levity, and Gavin walked scornfully away from it.

“Yet, if you will not tell me who you are,” he said, looking over his shoulder, “tell me where you got the cloak.”

“Na faags,” replied the gypsy out of the cloak. “Really, Mr. Dishart, you had better not ask,” she added, replacing it over her.

She followed him, meaning to gain the open by the fields to the north of the manse.

“Good-bye,” she said, holding out her hand, “if you are not to give me up.”

“I am not a policeman,” replied Gavin, but he would not take her hand.

“Surely, we part friends, then?” said the Egyptian, sweetly.

“No,” Gavin answered. “I hope never to see your face again.”

“I cannot help,” the Egyptian said, with dignity, “your not liking my face.” Then, with less dignity, she added, “There is a splotch of mud on your own, little minister; it came off the divit you flung at the captain.”

With this parting shot she tripped past him, and Gavin would not let his eyes follow her. It was not the mud on his face that distressed him, nor even the hand that had flung the divit. It was the word “little.” Though even Margaret was not aware of it, Gavin’s shortness had grieved him all his life. There had been times when he tried to keep the secret from himself. In his boyhood he had sought a remedy by getting his larger comrades to stretch him. In the company of tall men he was always self-conscious. In the pulpit he looked darkly at his congregation when he asked them who, by taking thought, could add a cubit to his stature. When standing on a hearthrug his heels were frequently on the fender. In his bedroom he has stood on a footstool and surveyed himself in the mirror. Once he fastened high heels to his boots, being ashamed to ask Hendry Munn to do it for him; but this dishonesty shamed him, and he tore them off. So the Egyptian had put a needle into his pride, and he walked to the manse gloomily.

Margaret was at her window, looking for him, and he saw her though she did not see him. He was stepping 77 into the middle of the road to wave his hand to her, when some sudden weakness made him look towards the fields instead. The Egyptian saw him and nodded thanks for his interest in her, but he scowled and pretended to be studying the sky. Next moment he saw her running back to him.

“There are soldiers at the top of the field,” she cried. “I cannot escape that way.”

“There is no other way,” Gavin answered.

“Will you not help me again?” she entreated.

She should not have said “again.” Gavin shook his head, but pulled her closer to the manse dyke, for his mother was still in sight.

“Why do you do that?” the girl asked, quickly, looking round to see if she were pursued. “Oh, I see,” she said, as her eyes fell on the figure at the window.

“It is my mother,” Gavin said, though he need not have explained, unless he wanted the gypsy to know that he was a bachelor.

“Only your mother?”

“Only! Let me tell you she may suffer more than you for your behaviour to-night!”

“How can she?”

“If you are caught, will it not be discovered that I helped you to escape?”

“But you said you did not.”

“Yes, I helped you,” Gavin admitted. “My God! what would my congregation say if they knew I had let you pass yourself off as – as my wife?”

He struck his brow, and the Egyptian had the propriety to blush.

“It is not the punishment from men I am afraid of,” Gavin said, bitterly, “but from my conscience. No, that is not true. I do fear exposure, but for my mother’s sake. Look at her; she is happy, because she thinks me good and true; she has had such trials as you cannot know of, and now, when at last I seemed 78 able to do something for her, you destroy her happiness. You have her life in your hands.”

The Egyptian turned her back upon him, and one of her feet tapped angrily on the dry ground. Then, child of impulse as she always was, she flashed an indignant glance at him, and walked quickly down the road.