? He had hoped
to get through the market-day without anybody knowing. But Wilson had a
son in Edinburgh; he had written, it was like. The salutation,
therefore, and the laugh, had both been uttered in derision. He wheeled,
his face black with the passionate blood. His mouth yawed with anger.
His voice had a moan of intensity.

"What are 'e laughing at?" he said, with a mastering quietness....
"Eh?... Just tell me, please, what you're laughing at."

He was crouching for the grip, his hands out like a gorilla's. The quiet
voice, from the yawing mouth, beneath the steady, flaming eyes, was
deadly. There is something inhuman in a rage so still.

"Eh?" he said slowly, and the moan seemed to come from the midst of a
vast intensity rather than a human being. It was the question that must
grind an answer.

Wilson was wishing to all his gods that he had not insulted this awful
man. He remembered what had happened to Gibson. This, he had heard, was
the very voice with which Gourlay moaned, "Take your hand off _my_
shouther!" ere he hurled Gibson through the window of the Red Lion.
Barbie might soon want a new Provost, if he ran in now.

But there is always one way of evading punishment for a veiled insult,
and of adding to its sting by your evasion. Repudiate the remotest
thought of the protester. Thus you enjoy your previous gibe, with the
additional pleasure of making your victim seem a fool for thinking you
referred to him. You not only insult him on the first count, but send
him off with an additional hint that he isn't worth your notice. Wilson
was an adept in the art.

"Man," he lied blandly, but his voice was quivering--"ma-a-an, I wasn't
so much as giving ye a thoat! It's verra strange if I cannot pass a joke
with my o-old friend Templandmuir without _you_ calling me to book. It's
a free country, I shuppose! Ye weren't in my mind at a-all. I have more
important matters to think of," he ventured to add, seeing he had
baffled Gourlay.

For Gourlay was baffled. For a directer insult, an offensive gesture,
one fierce word, he would have hammered the road with the Provost. But
he was helpless before the bland, quivering lie. Maybe they werena
referring to him; maybe they knew nothing of John in Edinburgh; maybe he
had been foolishly suspeecious. A subtle yet baffling check was put upon
his anger. Madman as he was in wrath, he never struck without direct
provocation; there was none in this pulpy gentleness. And he was t