e dirty kitchen
table, and then marching off to the hutch, with the ridiculous dish in
his hand, to feed his daughter's pets.

* * * * *

A sudden yell of pain and alarm rang through the kitchen. It came from
the outer yard.

When the boy, peering from the window above, saw his father disappear
through the scullery door, he stole out. The coast was clear at last.

He passed through to the outer yard. Jock Gilmour had been dashing water
on the paved floor, and was now sweeping it out with a great whalebone
besom. The hissing whalebone sent a splatter of dirty drops showering in
front of it. John set his bare feet wide (he was only in his shirt and
knickers) and eyed the man whom his father had "downed" with a kind of
silent swagger. He felt superior. His pose was instinct with the
feeling: "_My_ father is _your_ master, and ye daurna stand up till
him." Children of masterful sires often display that attitude towards
dependants. The feeling is not the less real for being subconscious.

Jock Gilmour was still seething with a dour anger because Gourlay's
quiet will had ground him to the task. When John came out and stood
there, he felt tempted to vent on him the spite he felt against his
father. The subtle suggestion of criticism and superiority in the boy's
pose intensified the wish. Not that Gilmour acted from deliberate
malice; his irritation was instinctive. Our wrath against those whom we
fear is generally wreaked upon those whom we don't.

John, with his hands in his pockets, strutted across the yard, still
watching Gilmour with that silent, offensive look. He came into the
path of the whalebone. "Get out, you smeowt!" cried Gilmour, and with a
vicious shove of the brush he sent a shower of dirty drops spattering
about the boy's bare legs.

"Hallo you! what are ye after?" bawled the boy. "Don't you try that on
again, I'm telling ye. What are _you_, onyway? Ye're just a servant.
Hay-ay-ay, my man, my faither's the boy for ye. _He_ can put ye in your
place."

Gilmour made to go at him with the head of the whalebone besom. John
stooped and picked up the wet lump of cloth with which Gilmour had been
washing down the horse's legs.

"Would ye?" said Gilmour threateningly.

"Would I no?" said John, the wet lump poised for throwing, level with
his shoulder.

But he did not throw it for all his defiant air. He hesitated. He would
have liked to slash it into Gilmour's face, but a swi