“And you too?”
In a few words Gavin told how he came to be beside the earl.
“I suppose they will say you have saved my life,” was Rintoul’s commentary.
“It is not saved yet. If help does not come, we shall be dead men in an hour. What have you done with my wife?”
Rintoul ceased to listen to him, and shouted sums of money to the shepherd, who shook his head and bawled an answer that neither Gavin nor the earl heard. Across that thundering water only Gavin’s voice could carry, the most powerful ever heard in a Thrums pulpit, the one voice that could be heard all over the Commonty during the time of the tent-preaching. Yet he never roared, as some preachers do of whom we say, “Ah, if they could hear the Little Minister’s word!”
Gavin caught the gesticulating earl by the sleeve, 359 and said, “Another man has gone for ropes. Now, listen to me; how dared you go through a marriage ceremony with her, knowing her already to be my wife?”
Rintoul did listen this time.
“How do you know I married her?” he asked sharply.
“I heard the cannon.”
Now the earl understood, and the shadow on his face shook and lifted, and his teeth gleamed. His triumph might be short-lived, but he would enjoy it while he could.