"A widow man!" cried Jean, tossing her head. "But Rob Dow was in no condition to be friendly wi' onybody the now."
"Jean, you don't mean that he has been drinking again?"
"I canna say he was drunk."
"Then what condition was he in?"
"He was in a--a swearing condition," Jean answered, guardedly. "But what I want to speir at you is, can I gang down to the Tenements for a minute? I'll run there and back."
"Certainly you can go, Jean, but you must not run. You are always running. Did Dow bring you word that you were wanted in the Tenements?"
"No exactly, but I--I want to consult Tammas Haggart about--about something."
"About Dow, I believe, Jean?"
"Na, but about something he has done. Oh, ma'am, you surely dinna think I would take a widow man?"
It was the day after Gavin's meeting with the Egyptian at the Kaims, and here is Jean's real reason for wishing to consult Haggart. Half an hour before she hurried to the parlour she had been at the kitchen door wondering whether she should spread out her washing in the garret or risk hanging it in the courtyard. She had just decided on the garret when she saw Rob Dow morosely regarding her from the gateway.
"Whaur is he?" growled Rob.
"He's out, but it's no for me to say whaur he is," replied Jean, whose weakness was to be considered a church official. "No that I ken," truthfulness compelled her to add, for she had an ambition to be everything she thought Gavin would like a woman to be.
Rob seized her wrists viciously and glowered into her face.
"You're ane o' them," he said.
"Let me go. Ane o' what?"
"Ane o' thae limmers called women."
"Sal," retorted Jean with spirit, "you're ane o' thae brutes called men. You're drunk, Rob Dow."
"In the legs maybe, but no higher. I haud a heap."
"Drunk again, after all your promises to the minister! And you said yoursel' that he had pulled you out o' hell by the root."
"It's himsel' that has flung me back again," Rob said, wildly. "Jean Baxter, what does it mean when a minister carries flowers in his pouch; ay, and takes them out to look at them ilka minute?"
"How do you ken about the holly?" asked Jean, off her guard.
"You limmer," said Dow, "you've been in his pouches."
"It's a lie!" cried the outraged Jean. "I just saw the holly this morning in a jug on his chimley."
"Carefully put by? Is it hod on the chimley? Does he stand looking at it? Do you tell me he's fond-like o't?"
"Mercy me!" Jean exclaimed, beginning to shake; "wha is she, Rob Dow?"
"Let me see it first in its jug," Rob answered, slyly, "and syne I may tell you." This was not the only time Jean had been asked to show the minister's belongings. Snecky Hobart, among others, had tried on Gavin's hat in the manse kitchen, and felt queer for some time afterwards. Women had been introduced on tiptoe to examine the handle of his umbrella. But Rob had not come to admire. He snatched the holly from Jean's hands, and casting it on the ground pounded it with his heavy boots, crying, "Greet as you like, Jean. That's the end o' his flowers, and if I had the tawpie he got them frae I would serve her in the same way."
"I'll tell him what you've done," said terrified Jean, who had tried to save the berries at the expense of her fingers.
"Tell him," Dow roared; "and tell him what I said too. Ay, and tell him I was at the Kaims yestreen. Tell him I'm hunting high and low for an Egyptian woman."
He flung recklessly out of the courtyard, leaving Jean looking blankly at the mud that had been holly lately. Not his act of sacrilege was distressing her, but his news. Were these berries a love token? Had God let Rob Dow say they were a gypsy's love token, and not slain him?
That Rob spoke of the Egyptian of the riots Jean never doubted. It was known that the minister had met this woman in Nanny Webster's house, but was it not also known that he had given her such a talking-to as she could never come above? Many could repeat the words in which he had announced to Nanny that his wealthy friends in Glasgow were to give her all she needed.