284 The Little Minister

But it was not to be. Never since that night
at Harvie have I spoken to Margaret.

The Egyptian and I were to come to Windy-
ghoul before I heard her speak. She was not
addressing me. Here Gavin and she had met
first, and she was talking of that meeting to
herself. .

“Tt was there,” I heard her say, softly, as she
gazed at the bush beneath which she had seen
him shaking his fist at her on the night of the
riots. A little farther on she stopped where a
path from Windyghoul sets off for the well in
the wood. She looked up it wistfully, and there I
left her behind, and pressed on to the mud house
to ask Nanny Webster if the minister was dead.
Nanny’s gate was swinging in the wind, but her
door was shut, and for a moment I stood at it
like a coward, afraid to enter and hear the worst.

The house was empty. I turned from it
relieved, as if I had got a respite, and while I
stood in the garden the Egyptian came to me
shuddering, her twitching face asking the question
that would not leave her lips.

“There is no one in the house,” I said.
“ Nanny is perhaps at the well.”

But the gypsy went inside, and, pointing to
the fire, said, “It has been out for hours. Do
you not see? The murder has drawn every one
into Thrums.”

So I feared. A dreadful night was to pass
before I knew that this was the day of the release
of Sanders Webster, and that frail Nanny had
walked into Tilliedrum to meet him at the prison
gate.