t was why he had such keen delight in surveying it. Every time
he looked at the place he had a sense of triumph over what he knew in
his bones to be an adverse public opinion. There was anger in his
pleasure, and the pleasure that is mixed with anger often gives the
keenest thrill. It is the delight of triumph in spite of opposition.
Gourlay's house was a material expression of that delight, stood for it
in stone and lime.

It was not that he reasoned deliberately when he built the house. But
every improvement that he made--and he was always spending money on
improvements--had for its secret motive a more or less vague desire to
score off his rivals. "_That_'ll be a slap in the face to the Provost!"
he smiled, when he planted his great mound of shrubs. "There's noathing
like _that_ about the Provost's! Ha, ha!"

Encased as he was in his hard and insensitive nature, he was not the man
who in new surroundings would be quick to every whisper of opinion. But
he had been born and bred in Barbie, and he knew his townsmen--oh yes,
he knew them. He knew they laughed because he had no gift of the gab,
and could never be Provost, or Bailie, or Elder, or even Chairman of the
Gasworks! Oh, verra well, verra well; let Connal and Brodie and
Allardyce have the talk, and manage the town's affairs (he was damned if
they should manage his!)--he, for his part, preferred the substantial
reality. He could never aspire to the provostship, but a man with a
house like that, he was fain to think, could afford to do without it. Oh
yes; he was of opinion he could do without it! It had run him short of
cash to build the place so big and braw, but, Lord! it was worth it.
There wasn't a man in the town who had such accommodation!

And so, gradually, his dwelling had come to be a passion of Gourlay's
life. It was a by-word in the place that if ever his ghost was seen, it
would be haunting the House with the Green Shutters. Deacon Allardyce,
trying to make a phrase with him, once quoted the saying in his
presence. "Likely enough!" said Gourlay. "It's only reasonable I should
prefer my own house to you rabble in the graveyard!"

Both in appearance and position the house was a worthy counterpart of
its owner. It was a substantial two-story dwelling, planted firm and
gawcey on a little natural terrace that projected a considerable
distance into the Square. At the foot of the steep little bank shelving
to the terrace ran a stone wall, of no great heigh