“Listen, the dogcart!”

“Egyptian” was not that forenoon among the words he knew, and I did not think of mentioning “hill.”  At “rain” he shivered; but “Spittal” was what told me most.

“He has taken her back,” he replied at once, from which I learned that Gavin now knew as much of Babbie as I did.

I made him as comfortable as possible, and despairing of learning anything from him in his present state, I let him sleep.  Then I went out into the rain, very anxious, and dreading what he might have to tell me when he woke.  I waded and jumped my way as near to the farm as I dared go, and Waster Lunny, seeing me, came to the water’s edge.  At this part the breadth of the flood was not forty yards, yet for a time our voices could no more cross its roar than one may send a snowball through a stone wall.  I know not whether the river then quieted for a space, or if it was only that the ears grow used to dins as the eyes distinguish the objects in a room that is at first black to them; but after a little we were able to shout our remarks across, much as boys fling pebbles, many to fall into the water, but one occasionally to reach the other side.  Waster Lunny would have talked of the flood, but I had not come here for that.

“How were you home so early from the prayer-meeting last night?” I bawled.

“No meeting ...  I came straucht hame ... but terrible stories ...  Mr. Dishart,” was all I caught after Waster Lunny had flung his words across a dozen times.

I could not decide whether it would be wise to tell him that Gavin was in the school-house, and while I hesitated he continued to shout: 

“Some woman ... the Session ...  Lang Tammas ...  God forbid ... maun back to the farm ... byre running like a mill-dam.”

He signed to me that he must be off, but my signals delayed him, and after much trouble he got my question, “Any news about Lord Rintoul?” My curiosity about the earl must have surprised him, but he answered: 

“Marriage is to be the day ... cannon.”

I signed that I did not grasp his meaning.

“A cannon is to be fired as soon as they’re man and wife,” he bellowed.  “We’ll hear it.”

With that we parted.  On my way home, I remember, I stepped on a brood of drowned partridge.  I was only out half an hour, but I had to wring my clothes as if they were fresh from the tub.

The day wore on, and I did not disturb the sleeper.  A dozen times, I suppose, I had to relight my fire of wet peats and roots; but I had plenty of time to stare out at the window, plenty of time to think.  Probably Gavin’s life depended on his sleeping, but that was not what kept my hands off him.  Knowing so little of what had happened in Thrums since I left it, I was forced to guess, and my conclusion was that the earl had gone off with his own, and that Gavin in a frenzy had followed them.  My wisest course, I thought, was to let him sleep until I heard