The House With the Green Shutters (6 page)

"Oh, I'se warrant Cunning Johnny would get the better of an ass like
Gourlay. But how in particular, Mr. Brodie? Have ye heard ainy details?"

"I've been on the track o' the thing for a while back, but it was only
yestreen I had the proofs o't. It was Robin Wabster that telled me. He's
a jouking bodie, Robin, and he was ahint a dike up the Skeighan Road
when Gibson and Gourlay forgathered—they stoppit just forenenst him!
Gourlay began to curse at the size of Gibson's bill, but Cunning Johnny
kenned the way to get round him brawly. 'Mr. Gourlay,' says he, 'there's
not a thing in your house that a man in your poseetion can afford to be
without, and ye needn't expect the best house in Barbie for an oald
song!' And Gourlay was pacified at once! It appeared frae their crack,
however, that Gibson has diddled him tremendous. 'Verra well then,'
Robin heard Gourlay cry, 'you must allow me a while ere I pay that!' I
wager, for a' sae muckle as he's made of late, that his balance at the
bank's a sma' yin."

"More thyow than thubstanth," said the Deacon.

"Well, I'm sure!" said the Provost, "he needn't have built such a
gra-and house to put a slut of a wife like yon in!"

"I was surprised," said Sandy Toddle, "to hear about her firing up. I
wouldn't have thought she had the spirit, or that Gourlay would have
come to her support!"

"Oh," said the Provost, "it wasn't her he was thinking of! It was his
own pride, the brute. He leads the woman the life of a doag. I'm
surprised that he ever married her!"

"I ken fine how he married her," said Johnny Coe. "I was acquaint wi'
her faither, auld Tenshillingland owre at Fechars—a grand farmer he
was, wi' land o' his nain, and a gey pickle bawbees. It was the bawbees,
and not the woman, that Gourlay went after! It was
her
money, as ye
ken, that set him on his feet, and made him such a big man. He never
cared a preen for
her
, and then when she proved a dirty trollop, he
couldna endure her look! That's what makes him so sore upon her now. And
yet I mind her a braw lass, too," said Johnny the sentimentalist, "a
braw lass she was," he mused, "wi' fine, brown glossy hair, I mind,
and—ochonee! ochonee!—as daft as a yett in a windy day. She had a
cousin, Jenny Wabster, that dwelt in Tenshillingland than, and mony a
summer nicht up the Fechars Road, when ye smelled the honeysuckle in the
gloaming, I have heard the two o' them tee-heeing owre the lads
thegither, skirling in the dark and lauching to themselves. They were of
the glaikit kind ye can always hear loang before ye see. Jock Allan
(that has done so well in Embro) was a herd at Tenshillingland than, and
he likit her, and I think she likit him; but Gourlay came wi' his gig
and whisked her away. She doesna lauch sae muckle now, puir bodie! But a
braw lass she—"

"It's you maun speak to Gourlay, Deacon," said the Provost, brushing
aside the reminiscent Coe.

"How can it be that, Provost? It'th
your
place, surely. You're the
head of the town!"

When Gourlay was to be approached there was always a competition for who
should be hindmost.

"Yass, but you know perfectly well, Deacon, that I cannot thole the look
of him. I simply cannot thole the look. And he knows it too. The
thing'll gang smash at the outset—
I'm
talling ye, now—it'll go
smash at the outset if it's left to me. And than, ye see, you have a
better way of approaching folk!"

"Ith that tho?" said the Deacon dryly. He shot a suspicious glance to
see if the Provost was guying him.

"Oh, it must be left to you, Deacon," said the baker and Tam Wylie in a
breath.

"Certainly, it maun be left to the Deacon," assented Johnny Coe, when he
saw how the others were giving their opinion.

"Tho be it, then," snapped the Deacon.

"Here he comes," said Sandy Toddle.

Gourlay came down the street towards them, his chest big, his thumbs in
the armholes of his waistcoat. He had the power of staring steadily at
those whom he approached without the slightest sign of recognition or
intelligence appearing in his eyes. As he marched down upon the bodies
he fixed them with a wide-open glower that was devoid of every
expression but courageous steadiness. It gave a kind of fierce vacancy
to his look.

The Deacon limped forward on his thin shanks to the middle of the road.

"It'th a fine morning, Mr. Gourlay," he simpered.

"There's noathing wrong with the morning," grunted Gourlay, as if there
was something wrong with the Deacon.

"We wath wanting to thee ye on a very important matter, Mithter
Gourlay," lisped the Deacon, smiling up at the big man's face, with his
head on one side, and rubbing his fingers in front of him. "It'th a
matter of the common good, you thee; and we all agreed that we should
speak to
you
, ath the foremost merchant of the town!"

Allardyce meant his compliment to fetch Gourlay. But Gourlay knew his
Allardyce, and was cautious. It was well to be on your guard when the
Deacon was complimentary. When his language was most flowery there was
sure to be a serpent hidden in it somewhere. He would lisp out an
innocent remark and toddle away, and Gourlay would think nothing of the
matter till a week afterwards, perhaps, when something would flash a
light; then "Damn him, did he mean '
that
'?" he would seethe, starting
back and staring at the "
that
" while his fingers strangled the air in
place of the Deacon.

He glowered at the Deacon now till the Deacon blinked.

"You thee, Mr. Gourlay," Allardyce shuffled uneasily, "it'th for your
own benefit just ath much ath ourth. We were thinking of you ath well
ath of ourthelves! Oh yeth, oh yeth!"

"Ay, man!" said Gourlay, "that was kind of ye! I'll be the first man in
Barbie to get ainy benefit from the fools that mismanage our affairs."

The gravel grated beneath the Provost's foot. The atmosphere was
becoming electric, and the Deacon hastened to the point.

"You thee, there'th a fine natural supply of water—a perfect reservore
the Provost sayth—on the brae-face just above
your
garden, Mr.
Gourlay. Now, it would be easy to lead that water down and alang through
all the gardenth on the high side of Main Street—and, 'deed, it might
feed a pump at the Cross, too, to supply the lower portionth o' the
town. It would really be a grai-ait convenience. Every man on the high
side o' Main Street would have a running spout at his own back door! If
your garden didna run tho far back, Mr. Gourlay, and ye hadna tho muckle
land about your place"—
that
should fetch him, thought the Deacon—"if
it werena for that, Mr. Gourlay, we could easily lead the water round to
the other gardenth without interfering with your property. But, ath it
ith, we simply can-noat move without ye. The water must come through
your garden, if it comes at a-all."

"The most o' you important men live on the high side o' Main Street,"
birred Gourlay. "Is it the poor folk at the Cross, or your ain bits o'
back doors that you're thinking o'?"

"Oh—oh, Mr. Gourlay!" protested Allardyce, head flung back, and palms
in air, to keep the thought of self-interest away, "oh—oh, Mr. Gourlay!
We're thinking of noathing but the common good, I do assure ye."

"Ay, man! You're dis-in-ter-ested!" said Gourlay, but he stumbled on the
big word and spoiled the sneer. That angered him, and, "It's likely," he
rapped out, "that I'll allow the land round
my
house to be howked and
trenched and made a mudhole of to oblige a wheen things like you!"

"Oh—oh, but think of the convenience to uth—eh—eh—I mean to the
common good," said Allardyce.

"I howked wells for myself," snapped Gourlay. "Let others do the like."

"Oh, but we haven't all the enterprithe of you, Mr. Gourlay. You'll
surely accommodate the town!"

"I'll see the town damned first," said Gourlay, and passed on his steady
way.

The bodies watched Gourlay in silence until he was out of earshot. Then,
"It's monstrous!" the Provost broke out in solemn anger; "I declare it's
perfectly monstrous! But I believe we could get Pow-ers to compel him.
Yass; I believe we could get Pow-ers. I do believe we could get
Pow-ers."

The Provost was fond of talking about "Pow-ers," because it implied that
he was intimate with the great authorities who might delegate such
"Pow-ers" to him. To talk of "Pow-ers," mysteriously, was a tribute to
his own importance. He rolled the word on his tongue as if he enjoyed
the sound of it.

On the Deacon's cheek bones two red spots flamed, round and big as a
Scotch penny. His was the hurt silence of the baffled diplomatist, to
whom a defeat means reflections on his own ability.

"Demn him!" he skirled, following the solid march of his enemy with
fiery eyes.

Never before had his deaconship been heard to swear. Tam Wylie laughed
at the shrill oath till his eyes were buried in his merry wrinkles, a
suppressed snirt, a continuous gurgle in the throat and nose, in beaming
survey the while of the withered old creature dancing in his rage. (It
was all a good joke to Tam, because, living on the outskirts of the
town, he had no spigot of his own to feed.) The Deacon turned the eyes
of hate on him. Demn Wylie too—what was he laughing at!

"Oh, I dare thay you could have got round him!" he snapped.

"In my opinion, Allardyce," said the baker, "you mismanaged the whole
affair. Yon wasna the way to approach him!"

"It'th a pity you didna try your hand, then, I'm sure! No doubt a clever
man like
you
would have worked wonderth!"

So the bodies wrangled among themselves. Somehow or other Gourlay had
the knack of setting them by the ears. It was not till they hit on a
common topic of their spite in railing at him that they became a band of
brothers and a happy few.

"Whisht!" said Sandy Toddle suddenly; "here's his boy!"

John was coming towards them on his way to school. The bodies watched
him as he passed, with the fixed look men turn on a boy of whose kinsmen
they were talking even now. They affect a stony and deliberate regard,
partly to include the newcomer in their critical survey of his family,
and partly to banish from their own eyes any sign that they have just
been running down his people. John, as quick as his mother to feel, knew
in a moment they were watching
him
. He hung his head sheepishly and
blushed, and the moment he was past he broke into a nervous trot, the
bag of books bumping on his back as he ran.

"He's getting a big boy, that son of Gourlay's," said the Provost; "how
oald will he be?"

"He's approaching twelve," said Johnny Coe, who made a point of being
able to supply such news because it gained him consideration where he
was otherwise unheeded. "He was born the day the brig on the Fleckie
Road gaed down, in the year o' the great flood; and since the great
flood it's twelve year come Lammas. Rab Tosh o' Fleckie's wife was
heavy-footed at the time, and Doctor Munn had been a' nicht wi' her, and
when he cam to Barbie Water in the morning it was roaring wide frae
bank to brae; where the brig should have been there was naething but the
swashing of the yellow waves. Munn had to drive a' the way round to the
Fechars brig, and in parts o' the road the water was so deep that it
lapped his horse's bellyband. A' this time Mrs. Gourlay was skirling in
her pains and praying to God she micht dee. Gourlay had been a great
crony o' Munn's, but he quarrelled him for being late; he had trysted
him, ye see, for the occasion, and he had been twenty times at the yett
to look for him. Ye ken how little he would stomach that; he was ready
to brust wi' anger. Munn, mad for the want of sleep and wat to the bane,
swüre back at him; and than Gourlay wadna let him near his wife! Ye mind
what an awful day it was; the thunder roared as if the heavens were
tumbling on the world, and the lichtnin sent the trees daudin on the
roads, and folk hid below their beds and prayed—they thocht it was the
Judgment! But Gourlay rammed his black stepper in the shafts, and drave
like the devil o' hell to Skeighan Drone, where there was a young
doctor. The lad was feared to come, but Gourlay swore by God that he
should, and he garred him. In a' the countryside driving like his that
day was never kenned or heard tell o'; they were back within the hour! I
saw them gallop up Main Street; lichtnin struck the ground before them;
the young doctor covered his face wi' his hands, and the horse nichered
wi' fear and tried to wheel, but Gourlay stood up in the gig and lashed
him on through the fire. It was thocht for lang that Mrs. Gourlay would
die; and she was never the same woman after. Atweel, ay, sirs, Gourlay
has that morning's work to blame for the poor wife he has now. Him and
Munn never spoke to each other again, and Munn died within the
twelvemonth—he got his death that morning on the Fleckie Road. But, for
a' so pack's they had been, Gourlay never looked near him."

Coe had told his story with enjoying gusto, and had told it well—for
Johnny, though constantly snubbed by his fellows, was in many ways the
ablest of them all. His voice and manner drove it home. They knew,
besides, he was telling what himself had seen. For they knew he was
lying prostrate with fear in the open smiddy-shed from the time Gourlay
went to Skeighan Drone to the time that he came back, and that he had
seen him both come and go. They were silent for a while, impressed, in
spite of themselves, by the vivid presentment of Gourlay's manhood on
the day that had scared them all. The baker felt inclined to cry out on
his cruelty for keeping his wife suffering to gratify his wrath; but the
sudden picture of the man's courage changed that feeling to another of
admiring awe: a man so defiant of the angry heavens might do anything.
And so with the others; they hated Gourlay, but his bravery was a fact
of nature which they could not disregard; they knew themselves smaller,
and said nothing for a while. Tam Brodie, the most brutal among them,
was the first to recover. Even he did not try to belittle at once, but
he felt the subtle discomfort of the situation, and relieved it by
bringing the conversation back to its usual channel.