The Little Minister

by J. M. Barrie

  Chapter Eighteen.

  CADDAM--LOVE LEADING TO A RUPTURE.

  Gavin told himself not to go near the mud house on the followingMonday; but he went. The distance is half a mile, and the time he tookwas two hours. This was owing to his setting out due west to reach apoint due north; yet with the intention of deceiving none savehimself. His reason had warned him to avoid the Egyptian, and hisdesires had consented to be dragged westward because they knew he hadstarted too soon. When the proper time came they knocked reason on thehead and carried him straight to Caddam. Here reason came to, andagain began to state its case. Desires permitted him to halt, as if toargue the matter out, but were thus tolerant merely because from wherehe stood he could see Nanny's doorway. When Babbie emerged from itreason seems to have made one final effort, for Gavin quickly tookthat side of a tree which is loved of squirrels at the approach of anenemy. He looked round the tree-trunk at her, and then reasondiscarded him. The gypsy had two empty pans in her hands. For a secondshe gazed in the minister's direction, then demurely leaped the ditchof leaves that separated Nanny's yard from Caddam, and strolled intothe wood. Discovering with indignation that he had been skulkingbehind the tree, Gavin came into the open. How good of the Egyptian,he reflected, to go to the well for water, and thus save the oldwoman's arms! Reason shouted from near the manse (he only heard theecho) that he could still make up on it. "Come along," said hisdesires, and marched him prisoner to the well.

  The path which Babbie took that day is lost in blaeberry leaves now,and my little maid and I lately searched for an hour before we foundthe well. It was dry, choked with broom and stones, and broken rustypans, but we sat down where Babbie and Gavin had talked, and I stirredup many memories. Probably two of those pans, that could be broken inthe hands to-day like shortbread, were Nanny's, and almost certainlythe stones are fragments from the great slab that used to cover thewell. Children like to peer into wells to see what the world is likeat the other side, and so this covering was necessary. Rob Angus wasthe strong man who bore the stone to Caddam, flinging it a yard beforehim at a time. The well had also a wooden lid with leather hinges, andover this the stone was dragged.

  Gavin arrived at the well in time to offer Babbie the loan of hisarms. In her struggle she had taken her lips into her mouth, but invain did she tug at the stone, which refused to do more than turnround on the wood. But for her presence, the minister's efforts wouldhave been equally futile. Though not strong, however, he had thenational horror of being beaten before a spectator, and once at schoolhe had won a fight by telling his big antagonist to come on until theboy was tired of pummelling him. As he fought with the stone now,pains shot through his head, and his arms threatened to come away atthe shoulders; but remove it he did.

  "How strong you are!" Babbie said with open admiration.

  I am sure no words of mine could tell how pleased the minister was;yet he knew he was not strong, and might have known that she had seenhim do many things far more worthy of admiration without admiringthem. This, indeed, is a sad truth, that we seldom give our love towhat is worthiest in its object.

  "How curious that we should have met here," Babbie said, in herdangerously friendly way, as they filled the pans. "Do you know Iquite started when your shadow fell suddenly on the stone. Did youhappen to be passing through the wood?"

  "No," answered truthful Gavin, "I was looking for you. I thought yousaw me from Nanny's door."

  "Did you? I only saw a man hiding behind a tree, and of course I knewit could not be you."

  Gavin looked at her sharply, but she was not laughing at him.

  "It was I," he admitted; "but I was not exactly hiding behind thetree."

  "You had only stepped behind it for a moment," suggested theEgyptian.

  Her gravity gave way to laughter under Gavin's suspicious looks, butthe laughing ended abruptly. She had heard a noise in the wood, Gavinheard it too, and they both turned round in time to see two raggedboys running from them. When boys are very happy they think they mustbe doing wrong, and in a wood, of which they are among the naturalinhabitants, they always take flight from the enemy, adults, if giventime. For my own part, when I see a boy drop from a tree I am aslittle surprised as if he were an apple or a nut. But Gavin wasstartled, picturing these spies handing in the new sensation about himat every door, as a district visitor distributes tracts. The gypsynoted his uneasiness and resented it.

  "What does it feel like to be afraid?" she asked, eyeing him.

  "I am afraid of nothing," Gavin answered, offended in turn.

  "Yes, you are. When you saw me come out of Nanny's you crept behind atree; when these boys showed themselves you shook. You are afraid ofbeing seen with me. Go away, then; I don't want you."

  "Fear," said Gavin, "is one thing, and prudence is another."

  "Another name for it," Babbie interposed.

  "Not at all; but I owe it to my position to be careful. Unhappily, youdo not seem to feel--to recognise--to know----"

  "To know what?"

  "Let us avoid the subject."

  "No," the Egyptian said, petulantly. "I hate not to be told things.Why must you be 'prudent?'"

  "You should see," Gavin replied, awkwardly, "that there is a--adifference between a minister and a gypsy."

  "But if I am willing to overlook it?" asked Babbie, impertinently.

  Gavin beat the brushwood mournfully with his staff.

  "I cannot allow you," he said, "to talk disrespectfully of my calling.It is the highest a man can follow. I wish----"

  He checked himself; but he was wishing she could see him in hispulpit.

  "I suppose," said the gypsy, reflectively, "one must be very clever tobe a minister."

  "As for that----" answered Gavin, waving his hand grandly.

  "And it must be nice, too," continued Babbie, "to be able to speak fora whole hour to people who can neither answer nor go away. Is it truethat before you begin to preach you lock the door to keep thecongregation in?"

  "I must leave you if you talk in that way."

  "I only wanted to know."

  "Oh, Babbie, I am afraid you have little acquaintance with the insideof churches. Do you sit under anybody?"

  "Do I sit under anybody?" repeated Babbie, blankly.

  Is it any wonder that the minister sighed? "Whom do you sit under?"was his form of salutation to strangers.

  "I mean, where do you belong?" he said.

  "Wanderers," Babbie answered, still misunderstanding him, "belong tonowhere in particular."

  "I am only asking you if you ever go to church?"

  "Oh, that is what you mean. Yes, I go often."

  "What church?"

  "You promised not to ask questions."

  "I only mean what denomination do you belong to?"

  "Oh, the--the----Is there an English church denomination?"

  Gavin groaned.

  "Well, that is my denomination," said Babbie, cheerfully. "Some day,though, I am coming to hear you preach. I should like to see how youlook in your gown."

  "We don't wear gowns."

  "What a shame! But I am coming, nevertheless. I used to like going tochurch in Edinburgh."

  "You have lived in Edinburgh?"

  "We gypsies have lived everywhere," Babbie said, lightly, though shewas annoyed at having mentioned Edinburgh.

  "But all gypsies don't speak as you do," said Gavin, puzzled again. "Idon't understand you."

  "Of course you dinna," replied Babbie, in broad Scotch. "Maybe, if youdid, you would think that it's mair imprudent in me to stand herecracking clavers wi' the minister than for the minister to waste histime cracking wi' me."

  "Then why do it?"

  "Because----Oh, because prudence and I always take different roads."

  "Tell me who you are, Babbie," the minister entreated; "at least, tellme where your encampment is."

  "You have warned me against imprudence," she said.

  "I want," Gavin continued, earnestly, "to know your people, yourfather a
nd mother."

  "Why?"

  "Because," he answered, stoutly, "I like their daughter."

  At that Babbie's fingers played on one of the pans, and, for themoment, there was no more badinage in her.

  "You are a good man," she said, abruptly; "but you will never know myparents."

  "Are they dead?"

  "They may be; I cannot tell."

  "This is all incomprehensible to me."

  "I suppose it is. I never asked any one to understand me."

  "Perhaps not," said Gavin, excitedly; "but the time has come when Imust know everything of you that is to be known."

  Babbie receded from him in quick fear.

  "You must never speak to me in that way again," she said, in a warningvoice.

  "In what way?"

  Gavin knew what way very well, but he thirsted to hear in her wordswhat his own had implied. She did not choose to oblige him, however.

  "You never will understand me," she said. "I daresay I might be morelike other people now, if--if I had been brought up differently. Not,"she added, passionately, "that I want to be like others. Do you neverfeel, when you have been living a humdrum life for months, that youmust break out of it, or go crazy?"

  Her vehemence alarmed Gavin, who hastened to reply--

  "My life is not humdrum. It is full of excitement, anxieties,pleasures, and I am too fond of the pleasures. Perhaps it is because Ihave more of the luxuries of life than you that I am so content withmy lot."

  "Why, what can you know of luxuries?"

  "I have eighty pounds a year."

  Babbie laughed. "Are ministers so poor?" she asked, calling back hergravity.

  "It is a considerable sum," said Gavin, a little hurt, for it was thefirst time he had ever heard any one speak disrespectfully of eightypounds.

  The Egyptian looked down at her ring, and smiled.

  "I shall always remember your saying that," she told him, "after wehave quarrelled."

  "We shall not quarrel," said Gavin, decidedly.

  "Oh, yes, we shall."

  "We might have done so once, but we know each other too well now."

  "That is why we are to quarrel."

  "About what?" said the minister. "I have not blamed you for deridingmy stipend, though how it can seem small in the eyes of a gypsy----"

  "Who can afford," broke in Babbie, "to give Nanny seven shillings aweek?"

  "True," Gavin said, uncomfortably, while the Egyptian again toyed withher ring. She was too impulsive to be reticent except now and then,and suddenly she said, "You have looked at this ring before now. Doyou know that if you had it on your finger you would be more worthrobbing than with eighty pounds in each of your pockets?"

  "Where did you get it?" demanded Gavin, fiercely.

  "I am sorry I told you that," the gypsy said, regretfully.

  "Tell me how you got it," Gavin insisted, his face now hard.

  "Now, you see, we are quarrelling."

  "I must know."

  "Must know! You forget yourself," she said haughtily.

  "No, but I have forgotten myself too long. Where did you get thatring?"

  "Good afternoon to you," said the Egyptian, lifting her pans.

  "It is not good afternoon," he cried, detaining her. "It is good-byefor ever, unless you answer me."

  "As you please," she said. "I will not tell you where I got my ring.It is no affair of yours."

  "Yes, Babbie, it is."

  She was not, perhaps, greatly grieved to hear him say so, for she madeno answer.

  "You are no gypsy," he continued, suspiciously.

  "Perhaps not," she answered, again taking the pans.

  "This dress is but a disguise."

  "It may be. Why don't you go away and leave me?"

  "I am going," he replied, wildly. "I will have no more to do with you.Formerly I pitied you, but----"

  He could not have used a word more calculated to rouse the Egyptian'sire, and she walked away with her head erect. Only once did she lookback, and it was to say--

  "This is prudence--now."