"It has been little," he replied. "With God's help it will be more in future."
He meant that he had given time to his sad love affair that he owed to his people. Of seeing Babbie again I saw that he had given up hope. Instead of repining, he was devoting his whole soul to God's work. I was proud of him, and yet I grieved, for I could not think that God wanted him to bury his youth so soon.
"I had thought," he confessed to me, "that you were one of those who did not like my preaching."
"You were mistaken," I said, gravely. I dared not tell him that, except his mother, none would have sat under him so eagerly as I.
"Nevertheless," he said, "you were a member of the Auld Licht church in Mr. Carfrae's time, and you left it when I came."
"Ah," he replied. "I had not been long in Thrums before I discovered that if I took tea with any of my congregation and declined a second cup, they thought it a reflection on their brewing."
"You must not look upon my absence in that light," was all I could say. "There are reasons why I cannot come."
He did not press me further, thinking I meant that the distance was too great, though frailer folk than I walked twenty miles to hear him. We might have parted thus had we not wandered by chance to the very spot where I had met him and Babbie. There is a seat there now for those who lose their breath on the climb up, and so I have two reasons nowadays for not passing the place by.
We read each other's thoughts, and Gavin said calmly, "I have not seen her since that night. She disappeared as into a grave."
How could I answer when I knew that Babbie was dying for want of him, not half a mile away?
"You seemed to understand everything that night," he went on; "or if you did not, your thoughts were very generous to me."
In my sorrow for him I did not notice that we were moving on again, this time in the direction of Windyghoul.
"She was only a gypsy girl," he said, abruptly, and I nodded. "But I hoped," he continued, "that she would be my wife."
"There was nothing monstrous to you," he asked, looking me in the face, "in a minister's marrying a gypsy?"
I own that if I had loved a girl, however far below or above me in degree, I would have married her had she been willing to take me. But to Gavin I only answered, "These are matters a man must decide for himself."