The House With the Green Shutters (24 page)

When the bodies assembled next day for their "morning," the Deacon was
able to inform them that young Gourlay was back from the College, dafter
than ever, and that he had pulled his leg as far as he wanted it. "Oh,"
he said, "I played him like a kitten wi' a cork, and found out ainything
and everything I wished. I dithcovered that he's in wi' Jock Allan and
that crowd—I edged the conversation round on purpoth! Unless he wath
blowing his trump—which I greatly doubt—they're as thick as thieveth.
Ye ken what that meanth. He'll turn hith wee finger to the ceiling
oftener than he puts hith forefinger to the pen, I'm thinking. It
theemth he drinkth enormuth! He took a gey nip last thummer, and this
thummer I wager he takes mair o't. He avowed his plain intention. 'I
mean to kick up a bit of a dust,' thays he. Oh, but he's the splurge!"

"Ay, ay," said Sandy Toddle, "thae students are a gey squad—especially
the young ministers."

"Ou," said Tam Wylie, "dinna be hard on the ministers. Ministers are
just like the rest o' folk. They mind me o' last year's early tatties.
They're grand when they're gude, but the feck o' them's frostit."

"Ay," said the Deacon, "and young Gourlay's frostit in the shaw already.
I doubt it'll be a poor ingathering."

"Weel, weel," said Tam Wylie, "the mair's the pity o' that, Deacon."

"Oh, it'th a grai-ait pity," said the Deacon, and he bowed his body
solemnly with outspread hands. "No doubt it'th a grai-ait pity!" and he
wagged his head from side to side, the picture of a poignant woe.

"I saw him in the Black Bull yestreen," said Brodie, who had been silent
hitherto in utter scorn of the lad they were speaking of—too disgusted
to open his mouth. "He was standing drinks to a crowd that were puffing
him up about that prize o' his."

"It's alwayth the numskull hath the most conceit," said the Deacon.

"And yet there must be something in him too, to get that prize," mused
the ex-Provost.

"A little ability's a dangerous thing," said Johnny Coe, who could think
at times. "To be safe you should be a genius winged and flying, or a
crawling thing that never leaves the earth. It's the half-and-half that
hell gapes for. And owre they flap."

But nobody understood him. "Drink and vanity'll soon make end of
him
,"
said Brodie curtly, and snubbed the philosopher.

Before the summer holiday was over (it lasts six months in Scotland)
young Gourlay was a habit-and-repute tippler. His shrinking abhorrence
from the scholastic life of Edinburgh flung him with all the greater
abandon into the conviviality he had learned to know at home. His mother
(who always seemed to sit up now, after Janet and Gourlay were in bed)
often let him in during the small hours, and as he hurried past her in
the lobby he would hold his breath lest she should smell it. "You're
unco late, dear," she would say wearily, but no other reproach did she
utter. "I was taking a walk," he would answer thickly; "there's a fine
moon!" It was true that when his terrible depression seized him he was
sometimes tempted to seek the rapture and peace of a moonlight walk
upon the Fleckie Road. In his crude clay there was a vein of poetry: he
could be alone in the country, and not lonely; had he lived in a green
quiet place, he might have learned the solace of nature for the wounded
when eve sheds her spiritual dews. But the mean pleasures to be found at
the Cross satisfied his nature, and stopped him midway to that soothing
beauty of the woods and streams which might have brought healing and a
wise quiescence. His success—such as it was—had gained him a
circle—such as it was—and the assertive nature proper to his father's
son gave him a kind of lead amongst them. Yet even his henchmen saw
through his swaggering. Swipey Broon turned on him one night, and
threatened to split his mouth, and he went as white as the wall behind
him.

Among his other follies, he assumed the pose of a man who could an he
would—who had it in him to do great things, if he would only set about
them. In this he was partly playing up to a foolish opinion of his more
ignorant associates; it was they who suggested the pose to him.
"Devilish clever!" he heard them whisper one night as he stood in the
door of a tavern; "he could do it if he liked, only he's too fond o' the
fun." Young Gourlay flushed where he stood in the darkness—flushed with
pleasure at the criticism of his character which was, nevertheless, a
compliment to his wits. He felt that he must play up at once to the
character assigned him. "Ho, ho, my lads!" he cried, entering with, a
splurge; "let's make a night o't. I should be working for my degree
to-night, but I suppose I can get it easy enough when the time comes."
"What did I tell ye?" said M'Craw, nudging an elbow; and Gourlay saw the
nudge. Here at last he had found the sweet seduction of a proper
pose—that of a
grand homme manqué
, of a man who would be a genius
were it not for the excess of his qualities. Would he continue to appear
a genius, then he must continue to display that excess which—so he
wished them to believe—alone prevented his brilliant achievements. It
was all a curious, vicious inversion. "You could do great things if you
didn't drink," crooned the fools. "See how I drink," Gourlay seemed to
answer; "that is why I don't do great things. But, mind you, I could do
them were it not for this." Thus every glass he tossed off seemed to
hint in a roundabout way at the glorious heights he might attain if he
didn't drink it. His very roistering became a pose, and his vanity made
him roister the more, to make the pose more convincing.

On a beautiful evening in September, when a new crescent moon was
pointing through the saffron sky like the lit tip of a finger, the City
Fathers had assembled at the corner of the Fleckie Road. Though the moon
was peeping, the dying glory of the day was still upon the town. The
white smoke rose straight and far in the golden mystery of the heavens,
and a line of dark roofs, transfigured against the west, wooed the eye
to musing. But though the bodies felt the fine evening bathe them in a
sensuous content, as they smoked and dawdled, they gave never a thought
to its beauty. For there had been a blitheness in the town that day, and
every other man seemed to have been preeing the demijohn.

Drucken Wabster and Brown the ragman came round the corner, staggering.

"Young Gourlay's drunk!" blurted Wabster—and reeled himself as he
spoke.

"Is he a wee fou?" said the Deacon eagerly.

"Wee be damned," said Wabster; "he's as fou as the Baltic Sea! If you
wait here, you'll be sure to see him! He'll be round the corner
directly."

"De-ar me, is he so bad as that?" said the ex-Provost, raising his hands
in solemn reprobation. He raised his eyes to heaven at the same time, as
if it pained them to look on a world that endured the burden of a young
Gourlay. "In broad daylight, too!" he sighed. "De-ar me, has he come to
this?"

"Yis, Pravast," hiccupped Brown, "he has! He's as phull of drink as a
whelk-shell's phull of whelk. He's nearly as phull as meself—and
begorra, that's mighty phull." He stared suddenly, scratching his head
solemnly as if the fact had just occurred to him. Then he winked.

"You could set fire to his braith!" cried Wabster. "A match to his mouth
would send him in a lowe."

"A living gas jet!" said Brown.

They staggered away, sometimes rubbing shoulders as they lurched
together, sometimes with the road between them.

"I kenned young Gourlay was on the fuddle when I saw him swinging off
this morning in his greatcoat," cried Sandy Toddle. "There was debauch
in the flap o' the tails o't."

"Man, have you noticed that too!" cried another eagerly. "He's aye warst
wi' the coat on!"

"Clothes undoubtedly affect the character," said Johnny Coe. "It takes a
gentleman to wear a lordly coat without swaggering."

"There's not a doubt o' tha-at!" approved the baker, who was merry with
his day's carousal; "there's not a doubt o' tha-at! Claes affect the
disposeetion. I mind when I was a young chap I had a grand pair o'
breeks—Wull I ca'ed them—unco decent breeks they were, I mind, lang
and swankie like a ploughman; and I aye thocht I was a tremendous honest
and hamely fallow when I had them on! And I had a verra disreputable
hat," he added—"Rab I christened him, for he was a perfect devil—and I
never cocked him owre my lug on nichts at e'en but 'Baker!' he seemed to
whisper, 'Baker! Let us go out and do a bash!' And we generally went."

"You're a wonderful man!" piped the Deacon.

"We may as well wait and see young Gourlay going by," said the
ex-Provost. "He'll likely be a sad spectacle."

"Ith auld Gourlay on the thtreet the nicht?" cried the Deacon eagerly.
"I wonder will he thee the youngster afore he gets hame! Eh, man"—he
bent his knees with staring delight—"eh, man, if they would only meet
forenenst uth! Hoo!"

"He's a regular waster," said Brodie. "When a silly young blood takes a
fancy to a girl in a public-house he's always done for; I've observed it
times without number. At first he lets on that he merely gangs in for a
drink; what he really wants, however, is to see the girl. Even if he's
no great toper to begin with, he must show himself fond o' the dram, as
a means of getting to his jo. Then, before he kens where he is, the
habit has gripped him. That's a gate mony a ane gangs."

"That's verra true, now that ye mention't," gravely assented the
ex-Provost. His opinion of Brodie's sagacity, high already, was enhanced
by the remark. "Indeed, that's verra true. But how does't apply to young
Gourlay in particular, Thomas? Is
he
after some damsel o' the
gill-stoup?"

"Ou ay—he's ta'en a fancy to yon bit shilp in the bar-room o' the Red
Lion. He's always hinging owre the counter talking till her, a cigarette
dropping from his face, and a half-fu' tumbler at his elbow. When a
young chap takes to hinging round bars, ae elbow on the counter and a
hand on his other hip, I have verra bad brows o' him always—verra bad
brows, indeed. Oh—oh, young Gourlay's just a goner! a goner, sirs—a
goner!"

"Have ye heard about him at the Skeighan Fair?" said Sandy Toddle.

"No, man," said Brodie, bowing down and keeking at Toddle in his
interest; "I hadna heard about tha-at! Is this a
new
thing?"

"Oh, just at the fair; the other day, ye know!"

"Ay, man, Sandy!" said big Brodie, stooping down to Toddle to get near
the news; "and what was it, Sandy?"

"Ou, just drinking, ye know, wi'—wi' Swipey Broon—and, eh, and that
M'Craw, ye know—and Sandy Hull—and a wheen mair o' that kind—ye ken
the kind; a verra bad lot!" said Sandy, and wagged a disapproving pow.
"Here they all got as drunk as drunk could be, and started fighting wi'
the colliers! Young Gourlay got a bloodied nose! Then nothing would
serve him but he must drive back wi' young Pin-oe, who was even drunker
than himsell. They drave at sic a rate that when they dashed from this
side o' Skeighan Drone the stour o' their career was rising at the far
end. They roared and sang till it was a perfect affront to God's day,
and frae sidie to sidie they swung till the splash-brods were skreighing
on the wheels. At a quick turn o' the road they wintled owre; and there
they were, sitting on their doups in the atoms o' the gig, and glowering
frae them! When young Gourlay slid hame at dark he was in such a state
that his mother had to hide him frae the auld man. She had that, puir
body! The twa women were obliged to carry the drunk lump to his
bedroom—and yon lassie far ga'en in consumption, too, they tell me! Ou,
he was in a perfectly awful condition—perfectly awful!"

"Ay, man," nodded Brodie. "I hadna heard o't. Curious that I didna hear
o' that!"

"It was Drucken Wabster's wife that telled it. There's not a haet that
happens at the Gourlays but she clypes. I speired her mysell, and she
says young Gourlay has a black eye."

"Ay, ay; there'th thmall hope for the Gourlayth in
him
!" said the
Deacon.

"How do
you
ken?" cried the baker. "He's no the first youngster I've
seen the wiseacres o' the world wagging their sagacious pows owre; and,
eh, but he was
this
waster!—according to their way of it—and, oh,
but he was the
other
waster! and, ochonee, but he was the
wild
fellow. And a' the while they werena fit to be his doormat; for it was
only the fire in the ruffian made him seem sae daft."

"True!" said the ex-Provost, "true! Still there's a decency in daftness.
And there's no decency in young Gourlay. He's just a mouth! 'Start
canny, and you'll steer weel,' my mother used to say; but he has started
unco ill, and he'll steer to ruin."

"Dinna spae ill-fortune!" said the baker, "dinna spae ill-fortune! And
never despise a youngster for a random start. It's the blood makes a
breenge."

"Well, I like young men to be quiet," said Sandy Toddle. "I would rather
have them a wee soft than rollickers."

"Not I!" said the baker. "If I had a son, I would rather an ill deil sat
forenenst me at the table than parratch in a poke. Burns (God rest his
banes!) struck the he'rt o't. Ye mind what he said o' Prince Geordie:

'Yet mony a ragged cowte's been known
To mak a noble aiver;
And ye may doucely fill a throne,
For a' their clishmaclaver.
There him at Agincourt wha shone.
Few better were or braver;
And yet wi' funny queer Sir John
He was an unco shaver
For mony a day.'

Dam't, but Burns is gude."

"Huts, man, dinna sweer sae muckle!" frowned the old Provost.

"Ou, there's waur than an oath now and than," said the baker. "Like
spice in a bun it lends a briskness. But it needs the hearty manner
wi't. The Deacon there couldna let blatter wi' a hearty oath to save his
withered sowl. I kenned a trifle o' a fellow that got in among a jovial
gang lang syne that used to sweer tremendous, and he bude to do the same
the bit bodie; so he used to say '
Dim it!
' in a wee, sma voice that
was clean rideec'lous. He was a lauchable dirt, that."