, and he blinked at her drunkenly.

There was a scarlet ribbon on her dark curls, coquettish, vivid, and
Gourlay stared at it dreamily, partly in a drunken daze, and partly
because a striking colour always brought a musing and self-forgetting
look within his eyes. All his life he used to stare at things dreamily,
and come to himself with a start when spoken to. He forgot himself now.

"Aggie," he said, and put his hand out to hers clumsily where it rested
on the counter--"Aggie, that ribbon's infernal bonny on your dark hair!"

She tossed her head, and perked away from him on her little high heels.
Him, indeed!--the drunkard! She wanted none of his compliments!

There were half a dozen in the place by this time, and they all stared
with greedy eyes. "That's young Gourlay--him that was _expelled_," was
heard, the last an emphatic whisper, with round eyes of awe at the
offence that must have merited such punishment. "_Expelled_, mind
ye!"--with a round shake of the head. "Watch Allardyce. We'll see fun."

"What's this 'expelled' is, now?" said John Toodle, with a very
considering look and tone in his uplifted face--"properly speaking, that
is," he added, implying that of course he knew the word in its ordinary
sense, but was not sure of it "properly speaking."

"Flung oot," said Drucken Wabster, speaking from the fullness of his own
experience.

"Whisht!" said a third. "Here's Tam Brodie. Watch what _he_ does."

The entrance of Brodie spoiled sport for the Deacon. He had nothing of
that malicious _finesse_ that made Allardyce a genius at nicking men on
the raw. He went straight to his work, stabbing like an awl.

"Hal-lo!" he cried, pausing with contempt in the middle of the word,
when he saw young Gourlay. "Hal-lo! _You_ here!--Brig o' the Mains,
miss, if _you_ please.--Ay, man! God, you've been making a name up in
Embro. I hear you stood up till him gey weel," and he winked openly to
those around.

Young Gourlay's maddened nature broke at the insult. "Damn you," he
screamed, "leave _me_ alone, will you? I have done nothing to _you_,
have I?"

Brodie stared at him across his suspended whisky glass, an easy and
assured contempt curling his lip. "Don't greet owre't, my bairn," said
he, and even as he spoke John's glass shivered on his grinning teeth.
Brodie leapt on him, lifted him, and sent him flying.

"That's a game of your father's, you damned dog," he roared. "But
there's mair than him can play the game!"