The doctor's horse clattered up the Backwynd noisily, as if a minister behind made no difference to it. Instead of climbing the Roods, however, the nearest way to Nanny's, it went westward, which Gavin, in a reverie, did not notice. The truth must be told. The Egyptian was again in his head. "Have I fallen deaf in the left ear, too?" said the doctor. "I see your lips moving, but I don't catch a syllable." Gavin started, coloured, and flung the gypsy out of the trap. "Why are we not going up the Roods?" he asked. "Well," said the doctor slowly, "at the top of the Roods there is a stance for circuses, and this old beast of mine won't pass it. You know, unless you are behind in the clashes and clavers of Thrums, that I bought her from the manager of a travelling show. She was the horse ('Lightning' they called her) that galloped round the ring at a mile an hour, and so at the top of the Roods she is still unmanageable. She once dragged me to the scene of her former triumphs, and went revolving round it, dragging the machine after her." "If you had not explained that," said Gavin, "I might have thought that you wanted to pass by Rashie-bog." The doctor, indeed, was already standing up to catch a first glimpse of the curlers. "Well," he admitted, "I might have managed to pass the circus ring, though what I have told you is true. However, I have not come this way merely to see how the match is going. I want to shame Mr. Duthie for neglecting his duty. It will help me to do mine, for the Lord knows I am finding it hard, with the music of these stones in my ears." "I never saw it played before," Gavin said, standing up in his turn. "What a din they make! McQueen, I believe they are fighting!" "No, no," said the excited doctor, "they are just a bit daft. That's the proper spirit for the game. Look, that's the baron- bailie near standing on his head, and there's Mr. Duthie off his head a' thegither. Yon's twa weavers and a mason cursing the laird, and the man wi' the besom is the Master of Crumnathie." "A democracy, at all events," said Gavin. "By no means," said the doctor, "it's an aristocracy of intellect. Gee up, Lightning, or the frost will be gone before we are there." "It is my opinion, doctor," said Gavin, "that you will have bones to set before that game is finished. I can see nothing but legs now." "Don't say a word against curling, sir, to me," said McQueen, whom the sight of a game in which he must not play had turned crusty. "Dangerous! It's the best medicine I know of. Look at that man coming across the field. It is Jo Strachan. Well, sir, curling saved Jo's life after I had given him up. You don't believe me? Hie, Jo, Jo Strachan, come here and tell the minister how curling put you on your legs again." Strachan came forward, a tough, little, wizened man, with red flannel round his ears to keep out the cold.