Gavin smiled at this, and Snecky Hobart, who happened to be keeking over the manse dyke, bore the news to the Tenements.

“I’ll no sleep the nicht,” Snecky said, “for wondering what made the minister lauch.  Ay, it would be no trifle.”

A minister, it is certain, who wore a smile on his face would never have been called to the Auld Licht kirk, for life is a wrestle with the devil, and only the frivolous think to throw him without taking off their coats.  Yet, though Gavin’s zeal was what the congregation reverenced, many loved him privately for his boyishness.  He could unbend at marriages, of which he had six on the last day of the year, and at every one of them he joked (the same joke) like a layman.  Some did not approve of his playing at the teetotum for ten minutes with Kitty Dundas’s invalid son, but the way Kitty boasted about it would have disgusted anybody.  At the present day there are probably a score of Gavins in Thrums, all called after the little minister, and there is one Gavinia, whom he hesitated to christen.  He made humorous remarks (the same remark) about all these children, and his smile as he patted their heads was for thinking over when one’s work was done for the day.

The doctor’s horse clattered up the Backwynd noisily, as if a minister behind made no difference to it.  Instead of climbing the Roods, however, the nearest way to Nanny’s, it went westward, which Gavin, in a reverie, did not notice.  The truth must be told.  The Egyptian was again in his head.

“Have I fallen deaf in the left ear, too?” said the doctor.  “I see your lips moving, but I don’t catch a syllable.”

Gavin started, coloured, and flung the gypsy out of the trap.

“Why are we not going up the Roods?” he asked.

“Well,” said the doctor slowly, “at the top of the Roods there is a stance for circuses, and this old beast of mine won’t pass it.  You know, unless you are behind in the clashes and clavers of Thrums, that I bought her from the manager of a travelling show.  She was the horse (’Lightning’ they called her) that galloped round the ring at a mile an hour, and so at the top of the Roods she is still unmanageable.  She once dragged me to the scene of her former triumphs, and went revolving round it, dragging the machine after her.”

“If you had not explained that,” said Gavin, “I might have thought that you wanted to pass by Rashie-bog.”

The doctor, indeed, was already standing up to catch a first glimpse of the curlers.

“Well,” he admitted, “I might have managed to pass the circus ring, though what I have told you is true.  However, I have not come this way merely to see how the match is going.  I want to shame Mr. Duthie for neglecting his duty.  It will help me to do mine, for the Lord knows I am finding it hard, with the music of these stones in my ears.”

“I never saw it played before,” Gavin said, standing up in his turn.  “What a din they make!  McQueen, I believe they are fighting!”