Part 37 (1/2)
”Speir at himsel'; speir at the woman.”
”What woman?”
”Take your staff out o' my neck.”
”Not till you tell me why you, of all people, are speaking against the minister.”
Torn by a desire for a confidant and loyalty to Gavin, Rob was already in a fury.
”Say again,” he burst forth, ”that I was speaking agin the minister and I'll practise on you what I'm awid to do to her.”
”Who is she?”
”Wha's wha?”
”The woman whom the minister----?”
”I said nothing about a woman,” said poor Rob, alarmed for Gavin.
”Doctor, I'm ready to swear afore a bailie that I never saw them thegither at the Kaims.”
”The Kaims!” exclaimed the doctor suddenly enlightened. ”Pooh! you only mean the Egyptian. Rob, make your mind easy about this. I know why he met her there.”
”Do you ken that she has bewitched him; do you ken I saw him trying to put his arms round her; do you ken they have a trysting-place in Caddam wood?”
This came from Rob in a rush, and he would fain have called it all back.
”I'm drunk, doctor, roaring drunk,” he said, hastily, ”and it wasna the minister I saw ava; it was another man.”
Nothing more could the doctor draw from Rob, but he had heard sufficient to smoke some pipes on. Like many who pride themselves on being recluses, McQueen loved the gossip that came to him uninvited; indeed, he opened his mouth to it as greedily as any man in Thrums. He respected Gavin, however, too much to find this new dish palatable, and so his researches to discover whether other Auld Lichts shared Rob's fears were conducted with caution. ”Is there no word of your minister's getting a wife yet?” he asked several, but only got for answers, ”There's word o' a Glasgow leddy's sending him baskets o'
flowers,” or ”He has his een open, but he's taking his time; ay, he's looking for the blade o' corn in the stack o' chaff.”
This convinced McQueen that the congregation knew nothing of the Egyptian, but it did not satisfy him, and he made an opportunity of inviting Gavin into the surgery. It was, to the doctor, the cosiest nook in his house, but to me and many others a room that smelled of hea.r.s.es. On the top of the pipes and tobacco tins that littered the table there usually lay a death certificate, placed there deliberately by the doctor to scare his sister, who had a pa.s.sion for putting the surgery to rights.
”By the way,” McQueen said, after he and Gavin had talked a little while, ”did I ever advise you to smoke?”
”It is your usual form of salutation,” Gavin answered, laughing. ”But I don't think you ever supplied me with a reason.”
”I daresay not. I am too experienced a doctor to cheapen my prescriptions in that way. However, here is one good reason. I have noticed, sir, that at your age a man is either a slave to a pipe or to a woman. Do you want me to lend you a pipe now?”
”Then I am to understand,” asked Gavin, slyly, ”that your locket came into your possession in your pre-smoking days, and that you merely wear it from habit?”
”Tuts!” answered the doctor, b.u.t.toning his coat. ”I told you there was nothing in the locket. If there is, I have forgotten what it is.”
”You are a hopeless old bachelor, I see,” said Gavin, unaware that the doctor was probing him. He was surprised next moment to find McQueen in the ecstasies of one who has won a rubber.
”Now, then,” cried the jubilant doctor, ”as you have confessed so much, tell me all about her. Name and address, please.”
”Confess! What have I confessed?”
”It won't do, Mr. Dishart, for even your face betrays you. No, no, I am an old bird, but I have not forgotten the ways of the fledgelings.