must make the strong personality of which he was proud
tell in some way. How, then, should he assert his superiority and hold
his own? Only by affecting a brutal scorn of everything said and done
unless it was said and done by John Gourlay. His lack of understanding
made his affectation of contempt the easier. A man can never sneer at a
thing which he really understands. Gourlay, understanding nothing, was
able to sneer at everything. "Hah! I don't understand that; it's damned
nonsense!"--that was his attitude to life. If "that" had been an
utterance of Shakespeare or Napoleon it would have made no difference to
John Gourlay. It would have been damned nonsense just the same. And he
would have told them so, if he had met them.

The man had made dogged scorn a principle of life to maintain himself at
the height which his courage warranted. His thickness of wit was never a
bar to the success of his irony. For the irony of the ignorant Scot is
rarely the outcome of intellectual qualities. It depends on a falsetto
voice and the use of a recognized number of catchwords. "Dee-ee-ar me,
dee-ee-ar me;" "Just so-a, just so-a;" "Im-phm!" "D'ye tell me that?"
"Wonderful, serr, wonderful;" "Ah, well, may-ay-be, may-ay-be"--these be
words of potent irony when uttered with a certain birr. Long practice
had made Gourlay an adept in their use. He never spoke to those he
despised or disliked without "the birr." Not that he was voluble of
speech; he wasn't clever enough for lengthy abuse. He said little and
his voice was low, but every word from the hard, clean lips was a stab.
And often his silence was more withering than any utterance. It struck
life like a black frost.

In those early days, to be sure, Gourlay had less occasion for the use
of his crude but potent irony, since the sense of his material
well-being warmed him and made him less bitter to the world. To the
substantial farmers and petty squires around he was civil, even hearty,
in his manner--unless they offended him. For they belonged to the close
corporation of "bien men," and his familiarity with them was a proof to
the world of his greatness. Others, again, were far too far beneath him
already for him to "down" them. He reserved his gibes for his immediate
foes, the assertive bodies his rivals in the town--and for his wife, who
was a constant eyesore. As for her, he had baited the poor woman so long
that it had become a habit; he never spoke to her without a sneer. "Ay,