Love Leading to a Rupture 195

wood. Discovering with indignation that he had
been skulking behind the tree, Gavin came into the
open. How good of the Egyptian, he reflected,
to go to the well for water, and thus save the old
woman’s arms! Reason shouted from near the
manse (he only heard the echo) that he could
still make up on it. ‘Come along,” said his de-
sires, and marched him prisoner to the well.

The path which Babbie took that day is lost in
blaeberry leaves now, and my little maid and I
lately searched for an hour before we found the well.
It was dry, choked with broom and stones, and
broken rusty pans, but we sat down where Babbie
and Gavin had talked, and I stirred up many
memories. Probably two of those pans, that
could be broken in the hands to-day like short-
bread, were Nanny’s, and almost certainly the
stones are fragments from the great slab that used
to cover the well. Children like to peer into
wells to see what the world is like at the other
side, and so this covering was necessary. Rob
Angus was the strong man who bore the stone to
Caddam, flinging it a yard before him at a time.
The well had also a wooden lid with leather
hinges, and over this the stone was dragged.

Gavin arrived at the well in time to offer Babbie
the loan of his arms. In her struggle she had
taken her lips into her mouth, but in vain did she
tug at the stone, which refused to do more than
turn round on the wood. But for her presence,
the minister’s efforts would have been equally
futile. Though not strong, however, he had the
national horror of being beaten before a spectator,
and once at school he had won a fight by telling