"Maggie!" implored her mother. "He'll hear you! There's the knocker!"
The minister's sudden appearance put an abrupt termination to Miss Cotton's gossip, but the story did not end there. Jessie concluded for the time, that, though a minister, Mr. Egerton must be something of a flirt, and as Donald was now repentant she soon found no time to bestow upon his rival. The young minister missed the girl's pleasant companionship, but he soon discovered that there was much greater trouble ahead of him. The story of his musical attainments in his college days rolled through Glenoro, gaining in bulk as it progressed. For, contrary to Miss Cotton's warning but quite in accord with her expectations, the tale leaked out. Bella told it to Wee Andra, who told "the boys" at the corner. Syl Todd rehearsed it before Coonie the next morning, and that was all that was necessary. Coonie embellished it to suit himself, and produced such a work of art that he shocked Mrs. Fraser beyond speech when he delivered it to her at the top of the hill.
By the time it reached the Oa it was to the effect that in his college days Mr. Egerton had been a very wild and dissolute youth. Glenoro might not have objected to a thoroughly reformed villain, but this young man's gay conduct left them in doubt whether at heart he was any better now than in the past. Old Andrew Johnstone, who had been somewhat mollified by the young man's action in regard to the organ, was once more aroused. At first he paid no heed to the story, for his son had told it to him. Wee Andra did not think it necessary to repeat it verbatim; he was rather vague concerning details, but extremely serious. Some tale 'Liza Cotton had heard, he explained. It was quite true, he feared, something or other about his playing a fiddle and dancing, far worse than Sandy Neil had ever been guilty of, for this was in a theatre. Wee Andra knew the word theatre was to his father a synonym for the bottomless pit. "Mebbe the minister had been an actor once." Wee Andra hoped, for the sake of the Church, that it wasn't true.
"Ah, ye tale-bearer!" cried his father with a withering contempt, which could not quite hide his perturbation. "It's a fine pack ye meet every night in the Glen! Their only thought is to hear or tell some new thing, let it be false or true! Ye canna' even keep yer ill tongues aff a meenister o' the Gospel!"
"But this is true, father," declared the young man seriously. "'Liza Cotton saw him herself; you can ask her, if you don't believe me. Man!" he continued, growing frivolous again, "it'll be fine here next winter if he plays the fiddle! Sandy Neil's goin' to ask him to learn him some new dance tunes!"
"Ah, ye irreverent fool!" shouted his father, rising up from the dinner table where this conversation had been held. "Man, ye an' yon Neil pack neither fear God nor regard man! Get oot o' ma' sight!"
Wee Andra, having wisely deferred his last shot until his dinner was finished, obeyed his father's injunction with alacrity, and went off to the fields, consumed with unfilial mirth.
Meantime the subject of all this discussion was not oblivious to the fact that some strange undercurrent of feeling was working against him. Coonie was the instrument used to make a reality out of the intangible thing.
The mail-carrier was coming slowly down the hill one September morning with hanging head and sullen mien. Eliza Cotton had been sewing down on the Flats for over a week and he had not had any fun for a long time. He was just sweeping the valley with his green eyes like a huge spider in search of prey, when he caught sight of a tempting fly. The young minister was coming up the leaf-strewn path by the roadside. He was just turning in at the McNabbs' gateway, when Coonie pulled up. He had brought a bundle from Lakeview for the blacksmith's wife with his accustomed grumblings, and had intended to fling it over the gate, as he passed, in the hope that it contained something breakable. But now he recognised in it an instrument in the hand of Providence to give him the long-wished-for speech with the minister.
"Good-mornin'!" he called, rather crustily, for Coonie affected good manners before no one, no matter what was his aim. "Will you hand this bundle to the Missus in there, if you're goin'. It's some o' the fool truck I've got to lug across the country for weemen."