The noisy crowd passed the house, and one tall figure detached itself from the group and, swinging open the gate, came up the path. Donald never forgot to give his uncle a call, as he passed on his way to the Glen. Duncan rose in a tremor of joy. He did not notice that his nephew gave a start at the sight of the minister. Mr. Egerton rose also and for an instant the two young men looked into each other's eyes with an expression of anything but amity.
"Oh and it will be you, Donal'," cried the old man in a voice which trembled with pleasure. "Here is the minister come to call."
Donald came forward, clinging desperately to the forlorn hope that the conversation had not been overheard.
"Good evening, Mr. Egerton," he said in a rather constrained voice, holding out his hand; but the other young man did not seem to notice; perhaps the dusk accounted for his mistake.
"Good evening, Mr. McDonald," he said stiffly. "I have remained rather long," he continued, speaking to Duncan Polite and incidentally turning his back upon Donald. He shook hands with his host and without so much as a nod towards the younger man, started for the gate. Duncan followed him, protesting, but the minister could not stay. He did not seem to hear the old man's timid suggestion that Donald would be going down to the village, too, and would be glad to accompany him, but strode off alone, indignation displayed in every line of his fine, straight figure.
VI
THE FULFILMENT OF PROMISE
There was not one dissenting voice in the chorus of admiration sung by the young people of Glenoro after their new pastor's social triumph at the Hamiltons'. Everybody liked him and there went through the older folk a thrill of joy that their pastor should be the leader of the young and unsteady set, to bring them to a higher and nobler plane of life.
Even Mrs. Fraser, the hypochondriac, was pleased with him in a mournful sort of way. Of course, she was somewhat alarmed when Miss Cotton declared that the minister was "jist a terror to cut up and could play 'Dan Tucker' better than Sandy Neil himself." But Annie Fraser explained that Mr. Egerton had done it just to show that he wasn't stiff or "stuck up."