!"... "Just that, now!"... "Im-phm!" And again, "Ay, ay!...
Dee-ee-ar me!" in grim, falsetto irony.

When he came back to the kitchen he turned to Janet, and left his son in
a suspended agony.

"Ay, woman, Jenny, ye're there!" he said, and nipped her ear as he
passed over to his chair. "Were ye in Skeighan the day?"

"Ay, faither," she answered.

"And what did the Skeighan doctor say?"

She raised her large pale eyes to his with a strange look. Then her head
sank low on her breast.

"Nothing!" she said at last.

"Nothing!" said he. "Nothing for nothing, then. I hope you didna pay
him?"

"No, faither," she answered. "I hadna the bawbees."

"When did ye get back?" he asked.

"Just after--just after----" Her eyes flickered over to John, as if she
were afraid of mentioning his name.

"Oh, just after this gentleman! But there's noathing strange in tha-at;
you were always after him. You were born after him, and considered after
him; he aye had the best o't.--I howp _you_ are in good health?" he
sneered, turning to his son. "It would never do for a man to break down
at the outset o' a great career!... For ye _are_ at the outset o' a
great career; are ye na?"

His speech was as soft as the foot of a tiger, and sheathed as rending a
cruelty. There was no escaping the crouching stealth of it. If he had
leapt with a roar, John's drunken fury might have lashed itself to rage.
But the younger and weaker man was fascinated and helpless before the
creeping approach of so monstrous a wrath.

"Eh?" asked Gourlay softly, when John made no reply; "I'm saying you're
at the outset o' a great career; are ye no? Eh?"

Soft as his "Eh" was in utterance, it was insinuating, pursuing; it had
to be answered.

"No," whimpered John.

"Well, well; you're maybe at the end o't! Have ye been studying hard?"

"Yes," lied John.

"That's right!" cried his father with great heartiness. "There's my
brave fellow! Noathing like studying!... And no doubt"--he leaned over
suavely--"and no doubt ye've brought a wheen prizes home wi' ye as
usual? Eh?"

There was no answer.

"Eh?"

"No," gulped the cowerer.

"_Nae_ prizes!" cried Gourlay, and his eyebrows went up in a pretended
surprise. "_Nae-ae_ prizes! Ay, man! Fow's that, na?"

Young Gourlay was being reduced to the condition of a beaten child, who,
when his mother asks if he has been a bad boy, is made to sob "Yes" at
her knee. "Have you been a good boy?" she asks--"No," he pan