“That is a light in the window.  Jump down, McKenzie, and inquire.”

Gavin took one step nearer Babbie and stopped.  He did not see how all her courage went from her, so that her knees yielded, and she held out her arms to him, but he heard a great sob and then his name.

“Gavin, I am afraid.”

Gavin understood now, and I say he would have been no man to leave her after that; only a moment was allowed him, and it was their last chance on earth.  He took it.  His arm went round his beloved, and he drew her away from Nanny’s.

McKenzie found both house and garden empty.

“And yet,” he said, “I swear some one passed the window as we sighted it.”

“Waste no more time,” cried the impatient earl.  “We must be very near the hill now.  You will have to lead the horse, McKenzie, in this darkness; the dog may find the way through the broom for us.”

“The dog has run on,” McKenzie replied, now in an evil temper.  “Who knows, it may be with her now?  So we must feel our way cautiously; there is no call for capsizing the trap in our haste.”  But there was call for haste if they were to reach the gypsy encampment before Gavin and Babbie were made man and wife over the tongs.

The Spittal dogcart rocked as it dragged its way through the broom.  Rob Dow followed.  The ten o’clock bell began to ring.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

While the ten o’clock bell was ringing.

     In the square and wynds—­weavers in groups: 

“No, no, Davit, Mr. Dishart hadna felt the blow the piper gave him till he ascended the pulpit to conduct the prayer-meeting for rain, and then he fainted awa.  Tammas Whamond and Peter Tosh carried him to the Session-house.  Ay, an awful scene.”

“How did the minister no come to the meeting?  I wonder how you could expect it, Snecky, and his mother taen so suddenly ill; he’s at her bedside, but the doctor has little hope.”

“This is what has occurred, Tailor:  Mr. Dishart never got the length of the pulpit.  He fell in a swound on the vestry floor.  What caused it?  Oh, nothing but the heat.  Thrums is so dry that one spark would set it in a blaze.”

“I canna get at the richts o’ what keeped him frae the meeting, Femie, but it had something to do wi’ an Egyptian on the hill.  Very like he had been trying to stop the gypsy marriage there.  I gaed to the manse to speir at Jean what was wrang, but I’m thinking I telled her mair than she could tell me.”

“Man, man, Andrew, the wite o’t lies wi’ Peter Tosh.  He thocht we was to hae sic a terrible rain that he implored the minister no to pray for it, and so angry was Mr. Dishart that he ordered the whole Session out o’ the kirk.  I saw them in Couthie’s close, and michty dour they looked.”

“Yes, as sure as death, Tammas Whamond locked the kirk-door in Mr. Dishart’s face.”