aten enemy. It
was as if he said, "See what I have done to ye!"

CHAPTER II.

Only a man of Gourlay's brute force of character could have kept all the
carrying trade of Barbie in his own hands. Even in these days of
railways, nearly every parish has a pair of carriers at the least,
journeying once or twice a week to the nearest town. In the days when
Gourlay was the great man of Barbie, railways were only beginning to
thrust themselves among the quiet hills, and the bulk of inland commerce
was still being drawn by horses along the country roads. Yet Gourlay was
the only carrier in the town. The wonder is diminished when we remember
that it had been a decaying burgh for thirty years, and that its trade,
at the best of times, was of meagre volume. Even so, it was astonishing
that he should be the only carrier. If you asked the natives how he did
it, "Ou," they said, "he makes the one hand wash the other, doan't ye
know?"--meaning thereby that he had so many horses travelling on his own
business, that he could afford to carry other people's goods at rates
that must cripple his rivals.

"But that's very stupid, surely," said a visitor once, who thought of
entering into competition. "It's cutting off his nose to spite his face!
Why is he so anxious to be the only carrier in Barbie that he carries
stuff for next to noathing the moment another man tries to work the
roads? It's a daft-like thing to do!"

"To be sure is't, to be sure is't! Just the stupeedity o' spite! Oh,
there are times when Gourlay makes little or noathing from the carrying;
but then, ye see, it gies him a fine chance to annoy folk! If you ask
him to bring ye ocht, 'Oh,' he growls, 'I'll see if it suits my own
convenience.' And ye have to be content. He has made so much money of
late that the pride of him's not to be endured."

It was not the insolence of sudden wealth, however, that made Gourlay
haughty to his neighbours; it was a repressiveness natural to the man
and a fierce contempt of their scoffing envy. But it was true that he
had made large sums of money during recent years. From his father (who
had risen in the world) he inherited a fine trade in cheese; also the
carrying to Skeighan on the one side and Fleckie on the other. When he
married Miss Richmond of Tenshillingland, he started as a corn broker
with the snug dowry that she brought him. Then, greatly to his own
benefit, he succeeded in establishing a valuable connection with
Templ