398 The Little Minister

In that rain one could not think. Babbie did
not know that she had bitten through the string
that tied her hands. She planned no escape. But
she flung herself at the place where Dow had
been standing. He was no longer there, and she
fell heavily, and was on her feet again in an
instant, and running recklessly. Trees inter-
cepted her, and she thought they were Dow,
and wrestled with them. By and by she fell
into Windyghoul, and there she crouched until
all her senses were restored to her, when she
remembered that she had been married lately.

How long Dow was in discovering that she
had escaped, and whether he searched for her, no
one knows. After a time he jumped into the
dog-cart again, and drove aimlessly through the
rain. That wild journey probably lasted two
hours, and came to an abrupt end only when a
tree fell upon the trap. The horse galloped off,
but one of Dow’s legs was beneath the tree, and
there he had to lie helpless, for though the leg
was little injured, he could not extricate himself.
A night and day passed, and he believed that he
must die; but even in this plight he did not for-
get the man he loved. He found a piece of
slate, and in the darkness cut these words on it
with his knife:

««Me being about to die, I solemnly swear I didna see the
minister marrying an Egyptian on the hill this nicht. May I
burn in Hell if this is no true.

(Signed) «© Ros Dow.”

This document he put in his pocket, and so
preserved proof of what he was perjuring himself
to deny.