th of Nations."

CHAPTER XVI.

The scion of the house of Gourlay was a most untravelled sprig when his
father packed him off to the University. Of the world beyond Skeighan he
had no idea. Repression of his children's wishes to see something of the
world was a feature of Gourlay's tyranny, less for the sake of the money
which a trip might cost (though that counted for something in his
refusal) than for the sake of asserting his authority. "Wants to gang to
Fechars, indeed! Let him bide at home," he would growl; and at home the
youngster had to bide. This had been the more irksome to John since most
of his companions in the town were beginning to peer out, with their
mammies and daddies to encourage them. To give their cubs a "cast o' the
world" was a rule with the potentates of Barbie; once or twice a year
young Hopeful was allowed to accompany his sire to Fechars or Poltandie,
or--oh, rare joy!--to the city on the Clyde. To go farther, and get the
length of Edinburgh, was dangerous, because you came back with a halo of
glory round your head which banded your fellows together in a common
attack on your pretensions. It was his lack of pretension to travel,
however, that banded them against young Gourlay. "Gunk" and "chaw" are
the Scots for a bitter and envious disappointment which shows itself in
face and eyes. Young Gourlay could never conceal that envious look when
he heard of a glory which he did not share; and the youngsters noted his
weakness with the unerring precision of the urchin to mark simple
difference of character. Now the boy presses fiendishly on an intimate
discovery in the nature of his friends, both because it gives him a new
and delightful feeling of power over them, and also because he has not
learned charity from a sense of his deficiencies, the brave ruffian
having none. He is always coming back to probe the raw place, and Barbie
boys were always coming back to "do a gunk" and "play a chaw" on young
Gourlay by boasting their knowledge of the world, winking at each other
the while to observe his grinning anger. They were large on the wonders
they had seen and the places they had been to, while he grew small (and
they saw it) in envy of their superiority. Even Swipey Broon had a crow
at him. For Swipey had journeyed in the company of his father to far-off
Fechars, yea even to the groset-fair, and came back with an epic tale of
his adventures. He had been in fifteen taverns, and one hotel (a
t