nity came
uppermost. As he neared the Red Lion he stopped suddenly, and the
darkness seemed on fire against his cheeks. He would have to face
curious eyes, he reflected. It was from the Red Lion he and Aird had
started so grandly in the autumn. It would never do to come slinking
back like a whipped cur; he must carry it off bravely in case the usual
busybodies should be gathered round the bar. So with his coat flapping
lordly on either side of him, his hands deep in his trousers pockets,
and his hat on the back of his head, he drove at the swing-doors with an
outshot chest, and entered with a "breenge." But for all his swagger he
must have had a face like death, for there was a cry among the idlers. A
man breathed, "My God! What's the matter?" With shaking knees Gourlay
advanced to the bar, and, "For God's sake, Aggie," he whispered, "give
me a Kinblythmont!"

It went at a gulp.

"Another!" he gasped, like a man dying of thirst, whom his first sip
maddens for more. "Another! Another!"

He had tossed the other down his burning throat when Deacon Allardyce
came in.

He knew his man the moment he set eyes on him, but, standing at the
door, he arched his hand above his brow, as you do in gazing at a dear
unexpected friend, whom you pretend not to be quite sure of, so
surprised and pleased are you to see him there.

"Ith it Dyohn?" he cried. "It _ith_ Dyohn!" And he toddled forward with
outstretched hand. "Man Dyohn!" he said again, as if he could scarce
believe the good news, and he waggled the other's hand up and down, with
both his own clasped over it. "I'm proud to thee you, thir; I am that.
And tho you're won hame, ay! Im-phm! And how are ye tummin on?"

"Oh, _I_'m all right, Deacon," said Gourlay with a silly laugh. "Have a
wet?" The whisky had begun to warm him.

"A wha-at?" said the Deacon, blinking in a puzzled fashion with his
bleary old eyes.

"A dram--a drink--a drop o' the Auld Kirk," said Gourlay, with a
stertorous laugh down through his nostrils.

"Hi! hi!" laughed the Deacon in his best falsetto. "Ith that what ye
call it up in Embro? A wet, ay! Ah, well, maybe I will take a little
drope, theeing you're tho ready wi' your offer."

They drank together.

"Aggie, fill me a mutchkin when you're at it," said Gourlay to the
pretty barmaid with the curly hair. He had spent many an hour with her
last summer in the bar. The four big whiskies he had swallowed in the
last half-hour were singing in him now