Gourlay went swiftly to the kitchen from the inner yard. He had stood so
long in silence on the step, and his coming was so noiseless, that he
surprised a long, thin trollop of a woman, with a long, thin, scraggy
neck, seated by the slatternly table, and busy with a frowsy
paper-covered volume, over which her head was bent in intent perusal.
"At your novelles?" said he. "Ay, woman; will it be a good story?"
She rose in a nervous flutter when she saw him; yet needlessly shrill in
her defence, because she was angry at detection.
"Ah, well!" she cried, in weary petulance, "it's an unco thing if a
body's not to have a moment's rest after such a morning's darg! I just
sat down wi' the book for a little, till John should come till his
breakfast!"
"So?" said Gourlay. "God, ay!" he went on; "you're making a nice job of
_him_. _He_'ll be a credit to the house. Oh, it's right, no doubt, that
_you_ should neglect your work till _he_ consents to rise."
"Eh, the puir la-amb," she protested, dwelling on the vowels in fatuous,
maternal love; "the bairn's wearied, man! He's ainything but strong, and
the schooling's owre sore on him."
"Poor lamb, atweel," said Gourlay. "It was a muckle sheep that dropped
him."
It was Gourlay's pride in his house that made him harsher to his wife
than others, since her sluttishness was a constant offence to the order
in which he loved to have his dear possessions. He, for his part, liked
everything precise. His claw-toed hammer always hung by the head on a
couple of nails close together near the big clock; his gun always lay
across a pair of wooden pegs, projecting from the brown rafters, just
above the hearth. His bigotry in trifles expressed his character. Strong
men of a mean understanding often deliberately assume, and passionately
defend, peculiarities of no importance, because they have nothing else
to get a repute for. "No, no," said Gourlay; "you'll never see a brown
cob in _my_ gig--I wouldn't take one in a present!" He was full of such
fads, and nothing should persuade him to alter the crotchets, which, for
want of something better, he made the marks of his dour character. He
had worked them up as part of his personality, and his pride of
personality was such that he would never consent to change them. Hence
the burly and gurly man was prim as an old maid with regard to his
belongings. Yet his wife was continually infringing the order on which
he set his heart. If he went forward to the big clock to look for his
hammer, it was sure to be gone--the two bright nails staring at him
vacantly. "Oh," she would say, in weary complaint, "I just took it to
break a wheen coals;" and he would find it in the coal-hole, greasy and
grimy finger-marks engrained on the handle which he loved to keep so
smooth and clean. Innumerable her offences of the kind. Independent of
these, the sight of her general incompetence filled him with a seething
rage, which found vent not in lengthy tirades but the smooth venom of
his tongue. Let him keep the outside of the house never so spick and
span, inside was awry with her untidiness. She was unworthy of the House
with the Green Shutters--that was the gist of it. Every time he set eyes
on the poor trollop, the fresh perception of her incompetence which the
sudden sight of her flashed, as she trailed aimlessly about, seemed to
fatten his rage and give a coarser birr to his tongue.
Mrs. Gourlay had only four people to look after--her husband, her two
children, and Jock Gilmour, the orra man. And the wife of Drucken
Wabster--who had to go charing because she was the wife of Drucken
Wabster--came in every day, and all day long, to help her with the work.
Yet the house was always in confusion. Mrs. Gourlay had asked for
another servant, but Gourlay would not allow that; "one's enough," said
he, and what he once laid down he never went back on. Mrs. Gourlay had
to muddle along as best she could, and having no strength either of mind
or body, she let things drift, and took refuge in reading silly fiction.
As Gourlay shoved his feet into his boots, and stamped to make them
easy, he glowered at the kitchen from under his heavy brows with a huge
disgust. The table was littered with unwashed dishes, and on the corner
of it next him was a great black sloppy ring, showing where a wet
saucepan had been laid upon the bare board. The sun streamed through the
window in yellow heat right on to a pat of melting butter. There was a
basin of dirty water beneath the table, with the dishcloth slopping over
on the ground.
"It's a tidy house!" said he.
"Ach, well," she cried, "you and your kitchen-range! It was that that
did it! The masons could have redd out the fireplace to make room for't
in the afternoon before it comes hame. They could have done't brawly,
but ye wouldna hear o't--oh no; ye bude to have the whole place gutted
out yestreen. I had to boil everything on the parlour fire this morning;
no wonder I'm a little tousy!"
The old-fashioned kitchen grate had been removed and the jambs had been
widened on each side of the fireplace; it yawned empty and cold. A
little rubble of mortar, newly dried, lay about the bottom of the
square recess. The sight of the crude, unfamiliar scraps of dropped lime
in the gaping place where warmth should have been, increased the
discomfort of the kitchen.
"Oh, that's it!" said Gourlay. "I see! It was want of the fireplace that
kept ye from washing the dishes that we used yestreen. That was
terrible! However, ye'll have plenty of boiling water when I put in the
grand new range for ye; there winna be its equal in the parish! We'll
maybe have a clean house _than_."
Mrs. Gourlay leaned, with the outspread thumb and red raw knuckles of
her right hand, on the sloppy table, and gazed away through the back
window of the kitchen in a kind of mournful vacancy. Always when her
first complaining defence had failed to turn aside her husband's tongue,
her mind became a blank beneath his heavy sarcasms, and sought refuge by
drifting far away. She would fix her eyes on the distance in dreary
contemplation, and her mind would follow her eyes in a vacant and
wistful regard. The preoccupation of her mournful gaze enabled her to
meet her husband's sneers with a kind of numb, unheeding acquiescence.
She scarcely heard them.
Her head hung a little to one side as if too heavy for her wilting neck.
Her hair, of a dry, red brown, curved low on either side of her brow, in
a thick, untidy mass, to her almost transparent ears. As she gazed in
weary and dreary absorption her lips had fallen heavy and relaxed, in
unison with her mood; and through her open mouth her breathing was
quick, and short, and noiseless. She wore no stays, and her slack cotton
blouse showed the flatness of her bosom, and the faint outlines of her
withered and pendulous breasts hanging low within.
There was something tragic in her pose, as she stood, sad and
abstracted, by the dirty table. She was scraggy helplessness, staring
in sorrowful vacancy. But Gourlay eyed her with disgust. Why, by Heaven,
even now her petticoat was gaping behind, worse than the sloven's at the
Red Lion. She was a pr-r-retty wife for John Gourlay! The sight of her
feebleness would have roused pity in some: Gourlay it moved to a steady
and seething rage. As she stood helpless before him he stung her with
crude, brief irony.
Yet he was not wilfully cruel; only a stupid man with a strong
character, in which he took a dogged pride. Stupidity and pride provoked
the brute in him. He was so dull--only dull is hardly the word for a man
of his smouldering fire--he was so dour of wit that he could never hope
to distinguish himself by anything in the shape of cleverness. Yet so
resolute a man must make the strong personality of which he was proud
tell in some way. How, then, should he assert his superiority and hold
his own? Only by affecting a brutal scorn of everything said and done
unless it was said and done by John Gourlay. His lack of understanding
made his affectation of contempt the easier. A man can never sneer at a
thing which he really understands. Gourlay, understanding nothing, was
able to sneer at everything. "Hah! I don't understand that; it's damned
nonsense!"--that was his attitude to life. If "that" had been an
utterance of Shakespeare or Napoleon it would have made no difference to
John Gourlay. It would have been damned nonsense just the same. And he
would have told them so, if he had met them.
The man had made dogged scorn a principle of life to maintain himself at
the height which his courage warranted. His thickness of wit was never a
bar to the success of his irony. For the irony of the ignorant Scot is
rarely the outcome of intellectual qualities. It depends on a falsetto
voice and the use of a recognized number of catchwords. "Dee-ee-ar me,
dee-ee-ar me;" "Just so-a, just so-a;" "Im-phm!" "D'ye tell me that?"
"Wonderful, serr, wonderful;" "Ah, well, may-ay-be, may-ay-be"--these be
words of potent irony when uttered with a certain birr. Long practice
had made Gourlay an adept in their use. He never spoke to those he
despised or disliked without "the birr." Not that he was voluble of
speech; he wasn't clever enough for lengthy abuse. He said little and
his voice was low, but every word from the hard, clean lips was a stab.
And often his silence was more withering than any utterance. It struck
life like a black frost.
In those early days, to be sure, Gourlay had less occasion for the use
of his crude but potent irony, since the sense of his material
well-being warmed him and made him less bitter to the world. To the
substantial farmers and petty squires around he was civil, even hearty,
in his manner--unless they offended him. For they belonged to the close
corporation of "bien men," and his familiarity with them was a proof to
the world of his greatness. Others, again, were far too far beneath him
already for him to "down" them. He reserved his gibes for his immediate
foes, the assertive bodies his rivals in the town--and for his wife, who
was a constant eyesore. As for her, he had baited the poor woman so long
that it had become a habit; he never spoke to her without a sneer. "Ay,
where have _you_ been stravaiging to?" he would drawl; and if she
answered meekly, "I was taking a dander to the linn owre-bye," "The
Linn!" he would take her up; "ye had a heap to do to gang there; your
Bible would fit you better on a bonny Sabbath afternune!" Or it might
be: "What's that you're burying your nose in now?" and if she faltered,
"It's the Bible," "Hi!" he would laugh, "you're turning godly in your
auld age. Weel, I'm no saying but it's time."
"Where's Janet?" he demanded, stamping his boots once more, now he had
them laced.
"Eh?" said his wife vaguely, turning her eyes from the window.
"Wha-at?"
"Ye're not turning deaf, I hope. I was asking ye where Janet was."
"I sent her down to Scott's for a can o' milk," she answered him
wearily.
"No doubt ye had to send _her_," said he. "What ails the lamb that ye
couldna send _him_--eh?"
"Oh, she was about when I wanted the milk, and she volunteered to gang.
Man, it seems I never do a thing to please ye! What harm will it do her
to run for a drop milk?"
"Noan," he said gravely, "noan. And it's right, no doubt, that her
brother should still be abed--oh, it's right that he should get the
privilege--seeing he's the eldest!"
Mrs. Gourlay was what the Scotch call "browdened[1] on her boy." In
spite of her slack grasp on life--perhaps, because of it--she clung with
a tenacious fondness to him. He was all she had, for Janet was a
thowless[2] thing, too like her mother for her mother to like her. And
Gourlay had discovered that it was one way of getting at his wife to be
hard upon the thing she loved. In his desire to nag and annoy her he
adopted a manner of hardness and repression to his son--which became
permanent. He was always "down" on John; the more so because Janet was
his own favourite--perhaps, again, because her mother seemed to neglect
her. Janet was a very unlovely child, with a long, tallowy face and a
pimply brow, over which a stiff fringe of whitish hair came down almost
to her staring eyes, the eyes themselves being large, pale blue, and
saucer-like, with a great margin of unhealthy white. But Gourlay, though
he never petted her, had a silent satisfaction in his daughter. He took
her about with him in the gig, on Saturday afternoons, when he went to
buy cheese and grain at the outlying farms. And he fed her rabbits when
she had the fever. It was a curious sight to see the dour, silent man
mixing oatmeal and wet tea-leaves in a saucer at the dirty kitchen
table, and then marching off to the hutch, with the ridiculous dish in
his hand, to feed his daughter's pets.
* * * * *
A sudden yell of pain and alarm rang through the kitchen. It came from
the outer yard.
When the boy, peering from the window above, saw his father disappear
through the scullery door, he stole out. The coast was clear at last.
He passed through to the outer yard. Jock Gilmour had been dashing water
on the paved floor, and was now sweeping it out with a great whalebone
besom. The hissing whalebone sent a splatter of dirty drops showering in
front of it. John set his bare feet wide (he was only in his shirt and
knickers) and eyed the man whom his father had "downed" with a kind of
silent swagger. He felt superior. His pose was instinct with the
feeling: "_My_ father is _your_ master, and ye daurna stand up till
him." Children of masterful sires often display that attitude towards
dependants. The feeling is not the less real for being subconscious.
Jock Gilmour was still seething with a dour anger because Gourlay's
quiet will had ground him to the task. When John came out and stood
there, he felt tempted to vent on him the spite he felt against his
father. The subtle suggestion of criticism and superiority in the boy's
pose intensified the wish. Not that Gilmour acted from deliberate
malice; his irritation was instinctive. Our wrath against those whom we
fear is generally wreaked upon those whom we don't.
John, with his hands in his pockets, strutted across the yard, still
watching Gilmour with that silent, offensive look. He came into the
path of the whalebone. "Get out, you smeowt!" cried Gilmour, and with a
vicious shove of the brush he sent a shower of dirty drops spattering
about the boy's bare legs.
"Hallo you! what are ye after?" bawled the boy. "Don't you try that on
again, I'm telling ye. What are _you_, onyway? Ye're just a servant.
Hay-ay-ay, my man, my faither's the boy for ye. _He_ can put ye in your
place."
Gilmour made to go at him with the head of the whalebone besom. John
stooped and picked up the wet lump of cloth with which Gilmour had been
washing down the horse's legs.
"Would ye?" said Gilmour threateningly.
"Would I no?" said John, the wet lump poised for throwing, level with
his shoulder.
But he did not throw it for all his defiant air. He hesitated. He would
have liked to slash it into Gilmour's face, but a swift vision of what
would happen if he did withheld his craving arm. His irresolution was
patent in his face; in his eyes there were both a threat and a watchful
fear. He kept the dirty cloth poised in mid-air.
"Drap the clout," said Gilmour.
"I'll no," said John.
Gilmour turned sideways and whizzed the head of the besom round so that
its dirty spray rained in the boy's face and eyes. John let him have the
wet lump slash in his mouth. Gilmour dropped the besom and hit him a
sounding thwack on the ear. John hullabalooed. Murther and desperation!
Ere he had gathered breath for a second roar his mother was present in
the yard. She was passionate in defence of her cub, and rage transformed
her. Her tense frame vibrated in anger; you would scarce have recognized
the weary trollop of the kitchen.
"What's the matter, Johnny dear?" she cried, with a fierce glance at
Gilmour.
"Gilmour hut me!" he bellowed angrily.
"Ye muckle lump!" she cried shrilly, the two scraggy muscles of her neck
standing out long and thin as she screamed; "ye muckle lump--to strike a
defenceless wean!--Dinna greet, my lamb; I'll no let him meddle
ye.--Jock Gilmour, how daur ye lift your finger to a wean of mine? But
I'll learn ye the better o't! Mr. Gourlay'll gie _you_ the order to
travel ere the day's muckle aulder. I'll have no servant about _my_
hoose to ill-use _my_ bairn."
She stopped, panting angrily for breath, and glared at her darling's
enemy.
"_Your_ servant!" cried Gilmour in contempt. "Ye're a nice-looking
object to talk about servants." He pointed at her slovenly dress and
burst into a blatant laugh: "Huh, huh, huh!"
Mr. Gourlay had followed more slowly from the kitchen, as befitted a man
of his superior character. He heard the row well enough, but considered
it beneath him to hasten to a petty squabble.
"What's this?" he demanded with a widening look. Gilmour scowled at the
ground.
"This!" shrilled Mrs. Gourlay, who had recovered her breath
again--"this! Look at him there, the muckle slabber," and she pointed to
Gilmour, who was standing with a red-lowering, downcast face, "look at
him! A man of that size to even himsell to a wean!"
"He deserved a' he got," said Gilmour sullenly. "His mother spoils him,
at ony rate. And I'm damned if the best Gourlay that ever dirtied
leather's gaun to trample owre _me_."
Gourlay jumped round with a quick start of the whole body. For a full
minute he held Gilmour in the middle of his steady glower.
"Walk," he said, pointing to the gate.
"Oh, I'll walk," bawled Gilmour, screaming now that anger gave him
courage. "Gie me time to get _my_ kist, and I'll walk mighty quick. And
damned glad I'll be to get redd o' you and your hoose. The Hoose wi' the
Green Shutters," he laughed, "hi, hi, hi!--the Hoose wi' the Green
Shutters!"
Gourlay went slowly up to him, opening his eyes on him black and wide.
"You swine!" he said, with quiet vehemence; "for damned little I would
kill ye wi' a glower!"
Gilmour shrank from the blaze in his eyes.
"Oh, dinna be fee-ee-ared," said Gourlay quietly, "dinna be fee-ee-ared.
I wouldn't dirty my hand on 'ee! But get your bit kist, and I'll see ye
off the premises. Suspeecious characters are worth the watching."
"Suspeecious!" stuttered Gilmour, "suspeecious! Wh-wh-whan was I ever
suspeecious? I'll have the law of ye for that. I'll make ye answer for
your wor-rds."
"Imphm!" said Gourlay. "In the meantime, look slippy wi' that bit box o'
yours. I don't like daft folk about _my_ hoose."
"There'll be dafter folk as me in your hoose yet," spluttered Gilmour
angrily, as he turned away.
He went up to the garret where he slept and brought down his trunk. As
he passed through the scullery, bowed beneath the clumsy burden on his
left shoulder, John, recovered from his sobbing, mocked at him.
"Hay-ay-ay," he said, in throaty derision, "my faither's the boy for ye.
Yon was the way to put ye down!"
FOOTNOTES:
[1] _Browdened._ A Scot devoted to his children is said to be "browdened
on his bairns."
[2] _Thowless_, weak, useless.