The House With the Green Shutters (29 page)

"Man," he lied blandly, but his voice was quivering—"ma-a-an, I wasn't
so much as giving ye a thoat! It's verra strange if I cannot pass a joke
with my o-old friend Templandmuir without
you
calling me to book. It's
a free country, I shuppose! Ye weren't in my mind at a-all. I have more
important matters to think of," he ventured to add, seeing he had
baffled Gourlay.

For Gourlay was baffled. For a directer insult, an offensive gesture,
one fierce word, he would have hammered the road with the Provost. But
he was helpless before the bland, quivering lie. Maybe they werena
referring to him; maybe they knew nothing of John in Edinburgh; maybe he
had been foolishly suspeecious. A subtle yet baffling check was put upon
his anger. Madman as he was in wrath, he never struck without direct
provocation; there was none in this pulpy gentleness. And he was too
dull of wit to get round the common ruse and find a means of getting at
them.

He let loose a great breath through his nostrils, as if releasing a
deadly force which he had pent within him, ready should he need to
spring. His mouth opened again, and he gaped at them with a great,
round, unseeing stare. Then he swung on his heel.

But wrath clung round him like a garment. His anger fed on its
uncertainties. For that is the beauty of the Wilson method of insult:
you leave the poison in your victim's blood, and he torments himself.
"Was Wilson referring to
me
, after all?" he pondered slowly; and his
body surged at the thought. "If he was, I have let him get away
unkilled," and he clutched the hands whence Wilson had escaped. Suddenly
a flashing thought stopped him dead in the middle of his walk, staring
hornily before him. He had seen the point at last that a quicker man
would have seized on at the first. Why had Wilson thrust his damned
voice on him on this particular morning of all days in the year, if he
was not gloating over some news which he had just heard about the
Gourlays? It was as plain as daylight: his son had sent word from
Edinburgh. That was why he brayed and ho-ho-hoed when Gourlay went by.
Gourlay felt a great flutter of pulses against his collar; there was a
pain in his throat, an ache of madness in his breast. He turned once
more. But Wilson and the Templar had withdrawn discreetly to the Black
Bull; the street wasna canny. Gourlay resumed his way, his being a dumb
gowl of rage. His angry thought swept to John. Each insult, and fancied
insult, he endured that day was another item in the long account of
vengeance with his son. It was John who had brought all this flaming
round his ears—John whose colleging he had lippened to so muckle. The
staff on which he leaned had pierced him. By the eternal heavens he
would tramp it into atoms. His legs felt John beneath them.

As the market grew busy, Gourlay was the aim of innumerable eyes. He
would turn his head to find himself the object of a queer, considering
look; then the eyes of the starer would flutter abashed, as though
detected spying the forbidden. The most innocent look at him was poison.
"Do they know?" was his constant thought; "have they heard the news?
What's Loranogie looking at me like that for?"

Not a man ventured to address him about John—he had cowed them too
long. One man, however, showed a wish to try. A pretended sympathy, from
behind the veil of which you probe a man's anguish at your ease, is a
favourite weapon of human beasts anxious to wound. The Deacon longed to
try it on Gourlay. But his courage failed him. It was the only time he
was ever worsted in malignity. Never a man went forth, bowed down with a
recent shame, wounded and wincing from the public gaze, but that old
rogue hirpled up to him, and lisped with false smoothness: "Thirce me,
neebour, I'm thorry for ye! Thith ith a
terrible
affair! It'th on
everybody'th tongue. But ye have my thympathy, neebour, ye have
tha-at—my warmetht thympathy." And all the while the shifty eyes above
the lying mouth would peer and probe, to see if the soul within the
other was writhing at his words.

Now, though everybody was spying at Gourlay in the market, all were
giving him a wide berth; for they knew that he was dangerous. He was no
longer the man whom they had baited on the way to Skeighan; then he had
some control, now three years' calamities had fretted his temper to a
raw wound. To flick it was perilous. Great was the surprise of the
starers, therefore, when the idle old Deacon was seen to detach himself
and hail the grain merchant. Gourlay wheeled, and waited with a levelled
eye. All were agog at the sight—something would be sure to come o'
this—here would be an encounter worth the speaking o'. But the Deacon,
having toddled forward a bittock on his thin shanks, stopped half-roads,
took snuff, trumpeted into his big red handkerchief, and then, feebly
waving, "I'll thee ye again, Dyohn," clean turned tail and toddled back
to his cronies.

A roar went up at his expense.

"God!" said Tam Wylie, "did ye see yon? Gourlay stopped him wi' a
glower."

But the laugh was maddening to Gourlay. Its readiness, its volume,
showed him that scores of folk had him in their minds, were watching
him, considering his position, cognizant of where he stood. "They ken,"
he thought. "They were a' waiting to see what would happen. They wanted
to watch how Gourlay tholed the mention o' his son's disgrace. I'm a
kind o' show to them."

Johnny Coe, idle and well-to-pass, though he had no business of his own
to attend to, was always present where business men assembled. It was a
gra-and way of getting news. To-day, however, Gourlay could not find
him. He went into the cattle mart to see if he was there. For two years
now Barbie had a market for cattle, on the first Tuesday of the month.

The auctioneer, a jovial dog, was in the middle of his roaring game. A
big red bullock, the coat of which made a rich colour in the ring, came
bounding in, scared at its surroundings—staring one moment and the next
careering.

"There's meat for you," said he of the hammer; "see how it runs! How
much am I offered for
this
fine bullock?" He sing-songed, always
saying "
this
fine bullock" in exactly the same tone of voice.
"Thirteen pounds for
this
fine bullock; thirteen-five; thirteen-ten;
thirteen-ten for
this
fine bullock; thirteen-ten; any further bids on
thirteen-ten? why, it's worth that for the colour o't; thank ye,
sir—thirteen-fifteen; fourteen pounds; fourteen pounds for
this
fine
bullock; see how the stot stots
[7]
about the ring; that joke should
raise him another half-sovereign; ah, I knew it would—fourteen-five;
fourteen-five for
this
fine bullock; fourteen-ten; no more than
fourteen-ten for
this
fine bullock; going at fourteen-ten;
gone—Irrendavie."

Now that he was in the circle, however, the mad, big, handsome beast
refused to go out again. When the cattlemen would drive him to the yard,
he snorted and galloped round, till he had to be driven from the ring
with blows. When at last he bounded through the door, he flung up his
heels with a bellow, and sent the sand of his arena showering on the
people round.

"I seh!" roared Brodie in his coarsest voice, from the side of the ring
opposite to Gourlay. "I seh, owctioner! That maun be a College-bred
stot, from the way he behaves. He flung dirt at his masters, and had to
be expelled."

"Put Brodie in the ring and rowp him!" cried Irrendavie. "He roars like
a bill, at ony rate."

There was a laugh at Brodie, true; but it was at Gourlay that a hundred
big red faces turned to look. He did not look at them, though. He sent
his eyes across the ring at Brodie.

"Lord!" said Irrendavie, "it's weel for Brodie that the ring's acqueesh
them! Gourlay'll murder somebody yet. Red hell lap out o' his e'en when
he looked at Brodie."

Gourlay's suspicion that his son's disgrace was a matter of common
knowledge had now become a certainty. Brodie's taunt showed that
everybody knew it. He walked out of the building very quietly, pale but
resolute; no meanness in his carriage, no cowering. He was an arresting
figure of a man as he stood for a moment in the door and looked round
for the man whom he was seeking. "Weel, weel," he was thinking, "I maun
thole, I suppose. They were under
my
feet for many a day, and they're
taking their advantage now."

But though he could thole, his anger against John was none the less. It
was because they had been under his feet for many a day that John's
conduct was the more heinous. It was his son's conduct that gave
Gourlay's enemies their first opportunity against him, that enabled them
to turn the tables. They might sneer at his trollop of a wife, they
might sneer at his want of mere cleverness; still he held his head high
amongst them. They might suspect his poverty; but so far, for anything
they knew, he might have thousands behind him. He owed not a man in
Barbie. The appointments of Green Shutters were as brave as ever. The
selling of his horses, the dismissal of his men, might mean the
completion of a fortune, not its loss. Hitherto, then, he was
invulnerable—so he reasoned. It was his son's disgrace that gave the
men he had trodden under foot the first weapon they could use against
him. That was why it was more damnable in Gourlay's eyes than the
conduct of all the prodigals that ever lived. It had enabled his foes to
get their knife into him at last, and they were turning the dagger in
the wound. All owing to the boy on whom he had staked such hopes of
keeping up the Gourlay name! His account with John was lengthening
steadily.

Coe was nowhere to be seen. At last Gourlay made up his mind to go out
and make inquiries at his house, out the Fleckie Road. It was a quiet,
big house, standing by itself, and Gourlay was glad there was nobody to
see him.

It was Miss Coe herself who answered his knock at the door.

She was a withered old shrew, with fifty times the spunk of Johnny. On
her thin wrists and long hands there was always a pair of bright red
mittens, only her finger-tips showing. Her far-sunken and toothless
mouth was always working, with a sucking motion of the lips; and her
round little knob of a sticking-out chin munched up and down when she
spoke, a long, stiff whitish hair slanting out its middle. However much
you wished to avoid doing so, you could not keep your eyes from staring
at that solitary hair while she was addressing you. It worked up and
down so, keeping time to every word she spoke.

"Is your brother in?" said Gourlay. He was too near reality in this sad
pass of his to think of "mistering." "Is your brother in?" said he.

"No-a!" she shrilled—for Miss Coe answered questions with an
old-maidish scream, as if the news she was giving must be a great
surprise both to you and her. "No-a!" she skirled; "he's no-a in-a. Was
it ainything particular?"

"No," said Gourlay heavily. "I—I just wanted to see him," and he
trudged away.

Miss Coe looked after him for a moment ere she closed the door. "He's
wanting to barrow money," she cried; "I'm nearly sure o't! I maun
caution Johnny when he comes back frae Fleckie, afore he gangs east the
toon. Gourlay could get him to do ocht! He always admired the brute—I'm
sure I kenna why. Because he's siccan a silly body himsell, I suppose!"

It was after dark when Gourlay met Coe on the street. He drew him aside
in the shadows, and asked for a loan of eighty pounds.

Johnny stammered a refusal. "Hauf the bawbees is mine," his sister had
skirled, "and I daur ye to do ony siccan thing, John Coe!"

"It's only for a time," pleaded Gourlay; "and, by God," he flashed,
"it's hell in
my
throat to ask from any man."

"No, no, Mr. Gourlay," said Johnny, "it's quite impossible. I've always
looked up to ye, and I'm not unwilling to oblige ye, but I cannot take
the risk."

"Risk!" said Gourlay, and stared at the darkness. By hook or by crook
he must raise the money to save the House with the Green Shutters. It
was no use trying the bank; he had a letter from the banker in his desk,
to tell him that his account was overdrawn. And yet if the interest were
not paid at once, the lawyers in Glasgow would foreclose, and the
Gourlays would be flung upon the street. His proud soul must eat dirt,
if need be, for the sake of eighty pounds.

"If I get the baker or Tam Wylie to stand security," he asked, "would ye
not oblige me? I think they would do it. I have always felt they
respected me."

"Well," said Johnny slowly, fearing his sister's anger, "if ye get the
baker and Tam Wylie for security. I'll be on the street for another
half-hour."

A figure, muffled in a greatcoat, was seen stealing off through the
shadows.

"God's curse on whoever that is," snarled Gourlay, "creeping up to
listen to our talk!"

"I don't think so," said Johnny; "it seemed a young chap trying to hide
himself."

Gourlay failed to get his securities. The baker, though a poor man,
would have stood for him, if Tam Wylie would have joined; but Tam would
not budge. He was as clean as gray granite, and as hard.

So Gourlay trudged home through the darkness, beaten at last, mad with
shame and anger and foreboding.

The first thing he saw on entering the kitchen was his son—sitting
muffled in his coat by the great fender.

Janet and her mother saw a quiver run through Gourlay as he stood and
glowered from the threshold. He seemed of monstrous bulk and
significance, filling the doorway in his silence.

The quiver that went through him was a sign of his contending angers,
his will struggling with the tumult of wrath that threatened to spoil
his revenge. To fell that huddled oaf with a blow would be a poor return
for all he had endured because of him. He meant to sweat punishment out
of him drop by drop, with slow and vicious enjoyment. But the sudden
sight of that living disgrace to the Gourlays woke a wild desire to leap
on him at once and glut his rage—a madness which only a will like his
could control. He quivered with the effort to keep it in.