"Are ye packit, Peter?" said Gourlay.
"Yes, sir," said Peter Riney, running round to the other side of a cart,
to fasten a horse's bellyband to the shaft. "Yes, sir, we're a' ready."
"Have the carriers a big load?"
"Andy has just a wheen parcels, but Elshie's as fu' as he can haud. And
there's a gey pickle stuff waiting at the Cross."
The hot wind of yesterday had brought lightning through the night, and
this morning there was the gentle drizzle that sometimes follows a heavy
thunderstorm. Hints of the farther blue showed themselves in a lofty sky
of delicate and drifting gray. The blackbirds and thrushes welcomed the
cooler air with a gush of musical piping, as if the liquid tenderness of
the morning had actually got into their throats and made them softer.
"You had better snoove away then," said Gourlay. "Donnerton's five mile
ayont Fleckie, and by the time you deliver the meal there, and load the
ironwork, it'll be late ere you get back. Snoove away, Peter; snoove
away!"
Peter shuffled uneasily, and his pale blue eyes blinked at Gourlay from
beneath their grizzled crow nests of red hair.
"Are we a' to start thegither, sir?" he hesitated. "D'ye mean--d'ye mean
the carriers too?"
"Atweel, Peter!" said Gourlay. "What for no?"
Peter took a great old watch, with a yellow case, from his fob, and,
"It wants a while o' aicht, sir," he volunteered.
"Ay, man, Peter, and what of that?" said Gourlay.
There was almost a twinkle in his eye. Peter Riney was the only human
being with whom he was ever really at his ease. It is only when a mind
feels secure in itself that it can laugh unconcernedly at others. Peter
was so simple that in his presence Gourlay felt secure; and he used to
banter him.
"The folk at the Cross winna expect the carriers till aicht, sir," said
Peter, "and I doubt their stuff won't be ready."
"Ay, man, Peter," Gourlay joked lazily, as if Peter was a little boy.
"Ay, man, Peter. You think the folk at the Cross winna be prepared?"
"No, sir," said Peter, opening his eyes very solemnly, "they winna be
prepared."
"It'll do them good to hurry a little for once," growled Gourlay, humour
yielding to spite at the thought of his enemies. "It'll do them good to
hurry a little for once. Be off, the lot of ye!"
After ordering his carriers to start, to back down and postpone their
departure, just to suit the convenience of his neighbours, would
derogate from his own importance. His men might think he was afraid of
Barbie.
He strolled out to the big gate and watched his teams going down the
brae.
There were only four carts this morning because the two that had gone to
Fechars yesterday with the cheese would not be back till the afternoon;
and another had already turned west to Auchterwheeze, to bring slates
for the flesher's new house. Of the four that went down the street two
were the usual carriers' carts, the other two were off to Fleckie with
meal, and Gourlay had started them the sooner since they were to bring
back the ironwork which Templandmuir needed for his new improvements.
Though the Templar had reformed greatly since he married his birkie
wife, he was still far from having his place in proper order, and he had
often to depend on Gourlay for the carrying of stuff which a man in his
position should have had horses of his own to bring.
As Gourlay stood at his gate he pondered with heavy cunning how much he
might charge Templandmuir for bringing the ironwork from Fleckie. He
decided to charge him for the whole day, though half of it would be
spent in taking his own meal to Donnerton. In that he was carrying out
his usual policy--which was to make each side of his business help the
other.
As he stood puzzling his wits over Templandmuir's account, his lips
worked in and out, to assist the slow process of his brain. His eyes
narrowed between peering lids, and their light seemed to turn inward as
he fixed them abstractedly on a stone in the middle of the road. His
head was tilted that he might keep his eyes upon the stone; and every
now and then, as he mused, he rubbed his chin slowly between the thumb
and fingers of his left hand. Entirely given up to the thought of
Templandmuir's account, he failed to see the figure advancing up the
street.
At last the scrunch of a boot on the wet road struck his ear. He turned
with his best glower on the man who was approaching; more of the
"Wha-the-bleezes-are-you?" look than ever in his eyes--because he had
been caught unawares.
The stranger wore a light yellow overcoat, and he had been walking a
long time in the rain apparently, for the shoulders of the coat were
quite black with the wet, these black patches showing in strong contrast
with the dryer, therefore yellower, front of it. Coat and jacket were
both hanging slightly open, and between was seen the slight bulge of a
dirty white waistcoat. The newcomer's trousers were turned high at the
bottom, and the muddy spats he wore looked big and ungainly in
consequence. In this appearance there was an air of dirty and
pretentious well-to-do-ness. It was not shabby gentility. It was like
the gross attempt at dress of your well-to-do publican who looks down on
his soiled white waistcoat with complacent and approving eye.
"It's a fine morning, Mr. Gourlay," simpered the stranger. His air was
that of a forward tenant who thinks it a great thing to pass remarks on
the weather with his laird.
Gourlay cast a look at the dropping heavens.
"Is that _your_ opinion?" said he. "I fail to see't mysell."
It was not in Gourlay to see the beauty of that gray, wet dawn. A fine
morning to him was one that burnt the back of your neck.
The stranger laughed: a little deprecating giggle. "I meant it was fine
weather for the fields," he explained. He had meant nothing of the kind,
of course; he had merely been talking at random in his wish to be civil
to that important man, John Gourlay.
"Imphm," he pondered, looking round on the weather with a wise air;
"imphm; it's fine weather for the fields."
"Are _you_ a farmer, then?" Gourlay nipped him, with his eye on the
white waistcoat.
"Oh--oh, Mr. Gourlay! A farmer, no. Hi--hi! I'm not a farmer. I dare
say, now, you have no mind of _me_?"
"No," said Gourlay, regarding him very gravely and steadily with his
dark eyes. "I cannot say, sir, that I have the pleasure of remembering
_you_."
"Man, I'm a son of auld John Wilson of Brigabee."
"Oh, auld Wilson, the mole-catcher!" said contemptuous Gourlay. "What's
this they christened him now? 'Toddling Johnnie,' was it noat?"
Wilson coloured. But he sniggered to gloss over the awkwardness of the
remark. A coward always sniggers when insulted, pretending that the
insult is only a joke of his opponent, and therefore to be laughed
aside. So he escapes the quarrel which he fears a show of displeasure
might provoke.
But though Wilson was not a hardy man, it was not timidity only that
caused his tame submission to Gourlay.
He had come back after an absence of fifteen years, with a good deal of
money in his pocket, and he had a fond desire that he, the son of the
mole-catcher, should get some recognition of his prosperity from the
most important man in the locality. If Gourlay had said, with solemn and
fat-lipped approval, "Man, I'm glad to see that you have done so well,"
he would have swelled with gratified pride. For it is often the
favourable estimate of their own little village--"What they'll think of
me at home"--that matters most to Scotsmen who go out to make their way
in the world. No doubt that is why so many of them go home and cut a
dash when they have made their fortunes; they want the cronies of their
youth to see the big men they have become. Wilson was not exempt from
that weakness. As far back as he remembered Gourlay had been the big man
of Barbie; as a boy he had viewed him with admiring awe; to be received
by him now, as one of the well-to-do, were a sweet recognition of his
greatness. It was a fawning desire for that recognition that caused his
smirking approach to the grain merchant. So strong was the desire that,
though he coloured and felt awkward at the contemptuous reference to his
father, he sniggered and went on talking, as if nothing untoward had
been said. He was one of the band impossible to snub, not because they
are endowed with superior moral courage, but because their easy
self-importance is so great that an insult rarely pierces it enough to
divert them from their purpose. They walk through life wrapped
comfortably round in the wool of their own conceit. Gourlay, though a
dull man--perhaps because he was a dull man--suspected insult in a
moment. But it rarely entered Wilson's brain (though he was cleverer
than most) that the world could find anything to scoff at in such a fine
fellow as James Wilson. A less ironic brute than Gourlay would never
have pierced the thickness of his hide. It was because Gourlay succeeded
in piercing it that morning that Wilson hated him for ever--with a hate
the more bitter because he was rebuffed so seldom.
"Is business brisk?" he asked, irrepressible.
Business! Heavens, did ye hear him talking? What did Toddling Johnny's
son know about business? What was the world coming to? To hear him
setting up his face there, and asking the best merchant in the town
whether business was brisk! It was high time to put him in his place,
the conceited upstart, shoving himself forward like an equal!
For it was the assumption of equality implied by Wilson's manner that
offended Gourlay--as if mole-catcher's son and monopolist were
discussing, on equal terms, matters of interest to them both.
"Business!" he said gravely. "Well, I'm not well acquainted with your
line, but I believe mole traps are cheap--if ye have any idea of taking
up the oald trade."
Wilson's eyes flickered over him, hurt and dubious. His mouth
opened--then shut--then he decided to speak after all. "Oh, I was
thinking Barbie would be very quiet," said he, "compared wi' places
where they have the railway. I was thinking it would need stirring up a
bit."
"Oh, ye was thinking that, was ye?" birred Gourlay, with a stupid man's
repetition of his jibe. "Well, I believe there's a grand opening in the
moleskin line, so _there's_ a chance for ye. My quarrymen wear out their
breeks in no time."
Wilson's face, which had swelled with red shame, went a dead white.
"Good-morning!" he said, and started rapidly away with a vicious dig of
his stick upon the wet road.
"Goo-ood mor-r-ning, serr!" Gourlay birred after him; "goo-ood
mor-r-ning, serr!" He felt he had been bright this morning. He had put
the branks on Wilson!
Wilson was as furious at himself as at Gourlay. Why the devil had he
said "Good-morning"? It had slipped out of him unawares, and Gourlay had
taken it up with an ironic birr that rang in his ears now, poisoning his
blood. He felt equal in fancy to a thousand Gourlays now--so strong was
he in wrath against him. He had gone forward to pass pleasant remarks
about the weather, and why should he noat?--he was no disgrace to
Barbie, but a credit rather. It was not every working-man's son that
came back with five hundred in the bank. And here Gourlay had treated
him like a doag! Ah, well, he would maybe be upsides with Gourlay yet,
so he might!