Feeling as old as he sometimes tried to look, Gavin turned homeward.  Margaret was already listening for him.  You may be sure she knew his step.  I think our steps vary as much as the human face.  My book-shelves were made by a blind man who could identify by their steps nearly all who passed his window.  Yet he has admitted to me that he could not tell wherein my steps differed from others; and this I believe, though rejecting his boast that he could distinguish a minister’s step from a doctor’s, and even tell to which denomination the minister belonged.

I have sometimes asked myself what would have been Gavin’s future had he gone straight home that night from Dow’s.  He would doubtless have seen the Egyptian before morning broke, but she would not have come upon him like a witch.  There are, I dare say, many lovers who would never have been drawn to each other had they met for the first time, as, say, they met the second time.  But such dreaming is to no purpose.  Gavin met Sanders Webster, the mole-catcher, and was persuaded by him to go home by Caddam Wood.

Gavin took the path to Caddam, because Sanders told him the Wild Lindsays were there, a gypsy family that threatened the farmers by day and danced devilishly, it was said, at night.  The little minister knew them by repute as a race of giants, and that not many persons would have cared to face them alone at midnight; but he was feeling as one wound up to heavy duties, and meant to admonish them severely.

Sanders, an old man who lived with his sister Nanny on the edge of the wood, went with him, and for a time both were silent.  But Sanders had something to say.

“Was you ever at the Spittal, Mr. Dishart?” he asked.

“Lord Rintoul’s house at the top of Glen Quharity?  No.”

“Hae you ever looked on a lord?”

“No.”

“Or on an auld lord’s young leddyship?  I have.”

“What is she?”

“You surely ken that Rintoul’s auld, and is to be married on a young leddyship.  She’s no’ a leddyship yet, but they’re to be married soon, so I may say I’ve seen a leddyship.  Ay, an impressive sicht.  It was yestreen.”

“Is there a great difference in their ages?”

“As muckle as atween auld Peter Spens and his wife, wha was saxteen when he was saxty, and she was playing at dumps in the street when her man was waiting for her to make his porridge.  Ay, sic a differ doesna suit wi’ common folk, but of course earls can please themsels.  Rintoul’s so fond o’ the leddyship ’at is to be, that when she was at the school in Edinbury he wrote to her ilka day.  Kaytherine Crummie telled me that, and she says aince you’re used to it, writing letters is as easy as skinning moles.  I dinna ken what they can write sic a heap about, but I daur say he gies her his views on the Chartist agitation and the potato disease, and she’ll write back about the romantic sichts o’ Edinbury and the sermons o’ the grand preachers she hears.  Sal, though, thae grand folk has no religion to speak o’, for they’re a’ English kirk.  You’re no’ speiring what her leddyship said to me?”