ir
household cares.

The freshness of the air, the smoke rising thin and far above the red
chimneys, the sunshine glistering on the roofs and gables, the rosy
clearness of everything beneath the dawn--above all, the quietness and
peace--made Barbie, usually so poor to see, a very pleasant place to
look down at on a summer morning. At this hour there was an unfamiliar
delicacy in the familiar scene, a freshness and purity of aspect--almost
an unearthliness--as though you viewed it through a crystal dream. But
it was not the beauty of the hour that kept Gourlay musing at his gate.
He was dead to the fairness of the scene, even while the fact of its
presence there before him wove most subtly with his mood. He smoked in
silent enjoyment because on a morning such as this everything he saw was
a delicate flattery to his pride. At the beginning of a new day, to look
down on the petty burgh in which he was the greatest man filled all his
being with a consciousness of importance. His sense of prosperity was
soothing and pervasive; he felt it all round him like the pleasant air,
as real as that and as subtle; bathing him, caressing. It was the most
secret and intimate joy of his life to go out and smoke on summer
mornings by his big gate, musing over Barbie ere he possessed it with
his merchandise.

He had growled at the quarry carters for being late in setting out this
morning (for, like most resolute dullards, he was sternly methodical),
but in his heart he was secretly pleased. The needs of his business were
so various that his men could rarely start at the same hour and in the
same direction. To-day, however, because of the delay, all his carts
would go streaming through the town together, and that brave pomp would
be a slap in the face to his enemies. "I'll show them," he thought
proudly. "Them" was the town-folk, and what he would show them was what
a big man he was. For, like most scorners of the world's opinion,
Gourlay was its slave, and showed his subjection to the popular estimate
by his anxiety to flout it. He was not great enough for the carelessness
of perfect scorn.

Through the big green gate behind him came the sound of carts being
loaded for the day. A horse, weary of standing idle between the shafts,
kicked ceaselessly and steadily against the ground with one impatient
hinder foot, clink, clink, clink upon the paved yard. "Easy, damn ye;
ye'll smash the bricks!" came a voice. Then there was the smart slap of