“You are better now?” I heard Gavin ask, presently.

He thought that having been taken ill suddenly I had waved to him for help because he chanced to be near.  With all my wits about me I might have left him in that belief, for rather would I have deceived him than had him wonder why his welfare seemed so vital to me.  But I, who thought the capacity for being taken aback had gone from me, clung to his arm and thanked God audibly that he still lived.  He did not tell me then how my agitation puzzled him, but led me kindly to the hill, where we could talk without listeners.  By the time we reached it I was again wary, and I had told him what had brought me to Thrums, without mentioning how the story of his death reached my ears, or through whom.

“Mr. McKenzie,” he said, interrupting me, “galloped all the way from the Spittal on the same errand.  However, no one has been hurt much, except the piper himself.”

Then he told me how the rumor arose.

“You know of the incident at the Spittal, and that Campbell marched off in high dudgeon?  I understand that he spoke to no one between the Spittal and Thrums, but by the time he arrived here he was more communicative; yes, and thirstier.  He was treated to drink in several public-houses by persons who wanted to hear his story, and by-and-by he began to drop hints of knowing something against the earl’s bride.  Do you know Rob Dow?”

“Yes,” I answered, “and what you have done for him.”

“Ah, sir!” he said, sighing, “for a long time I thought I was to be God’s instrument in making a better man of Rob, but my power over him went long ago.  Ten short months of the ministry takes some of the vanity out of a man.”

Looking sideways at him I was startled by the unnatural brightness of his eyes.  Unconsciously he had acquired the habit of pressing his teeth together in the pauses of his talk, shutting them on some woe that would proclaim itself, as men do who keep their misery to themselves.

“A few hours ago,” he went on, “I heard Rob’s voice in altercation as I passed the Bull tavern, and I had, a feeling that if I failed with him so should I fail always throughout my ministry.  I walked into the public-house, and stopped at the door of a room in which Dow and the piper were sitting drinking.  I heard Rob saying, fiercely, ’If what you say about her is true, Highlandman, she’s the woman I’ve been looking for this half year and mair; what is she like?’ I guessed, from what I had been told of the piper, that they were speaking of the earl’s bride; but Rob saw me and came to an abrupt stop, saying to his companion, ’Dinna say another word about her afore the minister.’  Rob would have come away at once in answer to my appeal, but the piper was drunk and would not be silenced.  ‘I’ll tell the minister about her, too,’ he began.  ’You dinna ken what you’re doing,” Rob roared, and then, as if to save my ears from scandal at any cost, he struck Campbell a heavy blow on the mouth.  I tried to intercept the blow, with the result that I fell, and then some one ran out of the tavern crying, ’He’s killed!’ The piper had been stunned, but the story went abroad that he had stabbed me for interfering with him.  That is really all.  Nothing, as you know, can overtake an untruth if it has a minute’s start.”