ff your dram! Stop! Somebody wrote something
about that--some poetry or other. Who was it?"

"I dinna ken," whimpered John.

"Don't tell lies now. You do ken. I heard you mention it to Loranogie.
Come on now--who was it?"

"It was Burns," said John.

"Oh, it was Burns, was it? And what had Mr. Burns to say on the subject?
Eh?"

"'Freedom and whisky gang thegither: tak aff your dram,'" stammered
John.

"A verra wise remark," said Gourlay gravely. "'Freedom and whisky gang
thegither;'" he turned the quotation on his tongue, as if he were
savouring a tit-bit. "That's verra good," he approved. "You're a great
admirer of Burns, I hear. Eh?"

"Yes," said John.

"Do what he bids ye, then. Take off your dram! It'll show what a fine
free fellow you are!"

It was a big, old-fashioned Scotch drinking-glass, containing more than
half a gill of whisky, and John drained it to the bottom. To him it had
been a deadly thing at first, coming thus from his father's hand. He had
taken it into his own with a feeling of aversion that was strangely
blended of disgust and fear. But the moment it touched his lips, desire
leapt in his throat to get at it.

"Good!" roared his father in mock admiration. "God, ye have the
thrapple! When I was your age that would have choked me. I must have a
look at that throat o' yours. Stand up!... _Stand up when I tall 'ee!_"

John rose swaying to his feet. Months of constant tippling, culminating
in a wild debauch, had shattered him. He stood in a reeling world. And
the fear weakening his limbs changed his drunken stupor to a
heart-heaving sickness. He swayed to and fro, with a cold sweat oozing
from his chalky face.

"What's ado wi' the fellow?" cried Gourlay. "Oom? He's swinging like a
saugh-wand. I must wa-alk round this and have a look!"

John's drunken submissiveness encouraged his father to new devilries.
The ease with which he tortured him provoked him to more torture; he
went on more and more viciously, as if he were conducting an experiment,
to see how much the creature would bear before he turned. Gourlay was
enjoying the glutting of his own wrath.

He turned his son round with a finger and thumb on his shoulder, in
insolent inspection, as you turn an urchin round to see him in his new
suit of clothes. Then he crouched before him, his face thrust close to
the other, and peered into his eyes, his mouth distent with an infernal
smile. "My boy, Johnny," he said sweetly, "my boy, Johnny