The Little Minister

“Woman!” he cried again.

“You are a dear,” she said, and vanished.

By the time Gavin was breathing freely again the lock-up was crammed with prisoners, and the Riot Act had been read from the town-house stair. It is still remembered that the baron-bailie, to whom this duty fell, had got no further than, “Victoria, by the Grace of God,” when the paper was struck out of his hands.

When a stirring event occurs up here we smack our lips over it for months, and so I could still write a history of that memorable night in Thrums. I could tell how the doctor, a man whose shoulders often looked as if they had been caught in a shower of tobacco ash, brought me the news to the school-house, and now, when I crossed the fields to dumfounder Waster Lunny with it, I found Birse, the post, reeling off the story to him as fast as a fisher could let out line. I know who was the first woman on the Marywell brae to hear the horn, and how she woke her husband, and who heard it first at the Denhead and the Tenements, with what they 53 immediately said and did. I had from Dite Deuchar’s own lips the curious story of his sleeping placidly throughout the whole disturbance, and on wakening in the morning yoking to his loom as usual; and also his statement that such ill-luck was enough to shake a man’s faith in religion. The police had knowledge that enabled them to go straight to the houses of the weavers wanted, but they sometimes brought away the wrong man, for such of the people as did not escape from the town had swopped houses for the night – a trick that served them better than all their drilling on the hill. Old Yuill’s son escaped by burying himself in a peat-rick, and Snecky Hobart by pretending that he was a sack of potatoes. Less fortunate was Sanders Webster, the mole-catcher already mentioned. Sanders was really an innocent man. He had not even been in Thrums on the night of the rising against the manufacturers, but thinking that the outbreak was to be left unpunished, he wanted his share in the glory of it. So he had boasted of being a ringleader until many believed him, including the authorities. His braggadocio undid him. He was run to earth in a pig-sty, and got nine months. With the other arrests I need not concern myself, for they have no part in the story of the little minister.

While Gavin was with the families whose breadwinners were now in the lock-up, a cell that was usually crammed on fair nights and empty for the rest of the year, the sheriff and Halliwell were in the round-room of the town-house, not in a good temper. They spoke loudly, and some of their words sank into the cell below.

“The whole thing has been a fiasco,” the sheriff was heard saying, “owing to our failing to take them by surprise. Why, three-fourths of those taken will have to be liberated, and we have let the worst offenders slip through our hands.”

“Well,” answered Halliwell, who was wearing a heavy cloak, “I have brought your policemen into the place, and that is all I undertook to do.”

“You brought them, but at the expense of alarming the countryside. I wish we had come without you.”

“Nonsense! My men advanced like ghosts. Could your police have come down that brae alone to-night?”

“Yes, because it would have been deserted. Your soldiers, I tell you, have done the mischief. This woman, who, so many of our prisoners admit, brought the news of our coming, must either have got it from one of your men or have seen them on the march.”

“The men did not know their destination. True, she might have seen us despite our precautions, but you forget that she told them how we were to act in the event of our being seen. That is what perplexes me.”

“Yes, and me too, for it was a close secret between you and me and Lord Rintoul and not half-a-dozen others.”

“Well, find the woman, and we shall get the explanation. If she is still in the town she cannot escape, for my men are everywhere.”

“She was seen ten minutes ago.”

“Then she is ours. I say, Riach, if I were you I would set all my prisoners free and take away a cart-load of their wives instead. I have only seen the backs of the men of Thrums, but, on my word, I very nearly ran away from the women. Hallo! I believe one of your police has caught our virago single-handed.”

So Halliwell exclaimed, hearing some one shout, “This is the rascal!” But it was not the Egyptian who was then thrust into the round-room. It was John Dunwoodie, looking very sly. Probably there was not, even in Thrums, a cannier man than Dunwoodie. His religious views were those of Cruickshanks, but he went regularly to church “on the off-chance of there being a God after all; so I’m safe, whatever side may be wrong.”

“This is the man,” explained a policeman, “who brought the alarm. He admits himself having been in Tilliedrum just before we started.”

“Your name, my man?” the sheriff demanded.

“It micht be John Dunwoodie,” the tinsmith answered cautiously.

“But is it?”

“I dinna say it’s no.”

“You were in Tilliedrum this evening?”

“I micht hae been.”

“Were you?”

“I’ll swear to nothing.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m a canny man.”

“Into the cell with him,” Halliwell cried, losing patience.

“Leave him to me,” said the sheriff. “I understand the sort of man. Now, Dunwoodie, what were you doing in Tilliedrum?”

“I was taking my laddie down to be prenticed to a writer there,” answered Dunwoodie, falling into the sheriff’s net.

“What are you yourself?”

“I micht be a tinsmith to trade.”

“And you, a mere tinsmith, dare to tell me that a lawyer was willing to take your son into his office? Be cautious, Dunwoodie.”

“Weel, then, the laddie’s highly edicated and I hae siller, and that’s how the writer was to take him and make a gentleman o’ him.”

“I learn from the neighbours,” the policeman explained, “that this is partly true, but what makes us suspect him is this. He left the laddie at Tilliedrum, and yet when he came home the first person he sees at the fireside is the laddie himself. The laddie had run home, and the reason plainly was that he had heard of our preparations and wanted to alarm the town.”

“There seems something in this, Dunwoodie,” the sheriff said, “and if you cannot explain it I must keep you in custody.”

“I’ll make a clean breast o’t,” Dunwoodie replied, seeing that in this matter truth was best. “The laddie was terrible against being made a gentleman, and when he saw the kind o’ life he would hae to lead, clean hands, clean dickies, and no gutters on his breeks, his heart took mair scunner at genteelity than ever, and he ran hame. Ay, I was mad when I saw him at the fireside, but he says to me, ‘How would you like to be a gentleman yoursel’, father?’ he says, and that so affected me ’at I’m to gie him his ain way.”

Another prisoner, Dave Langlands, was confronted with Dunwoodie.

“John Dunwoodie’s as innocent as I am mysel,” Dave said, “and I’m most michty innocent. It wasna John but the Egyptian that gave the alarm. I tell you what, sheriff, if it’ll make me innocenter-like I’ll picture the Egyptian to you just as I saw her, and syne you’ll be able to catch her easier.”

“You are an honest fellow,” said the sheriff.

“I only wish I had the whipping of him,” growled Halliwell, who was of a generous nature.

“For what business had she,” continued Dave righteously, “to meddle in other folks’ business? She’s no a Thrums lassie, and so I say, ‘Let the law take its course on her.’”

“Will you listen to such a cur, Riach?” asked Halliwell.

“Certainly. Speak out, Langlands.”

“Weel, then, I was in the windmill the nicht.”

“You were a watcher?”

“I happened to be in the windmill wi’ another man,” Dave went on, avoiding the officer’s question.

“What was his name?” demanded Halliwell.

“It was the Egyptian I was to tell you about,” Dave said, looking to the sheriff.

“Ah, yes, you only tell tales about women,” said Halliwell.