n tail!" Self-dependence was
never more luridly expressed. History, climate, social conditions, and
the national beverage have all combined (the pundits go on) to make the
Scot an individualist, fighting for his own hand. The better for him if
it be so; from that he gets the grit that tells.

From their individualism, however, comes inevitably a keen spirit of
competition (the more so because Scotch democracy gives fine chances to
compete), and from their keen spirit of competition comes, inevitably
again, an envious belittlement of rivals. If a man's success offends
your individuality, to say everything you can against him is a
recognized weapon of the fight. It takes him down a bit, and (inversely)
elevates his rival.

It is in a small place like Barbie that such malignity is most virulent,
because in a small place like Barbie every man knows everything to his
neighbour's detriment. He can redd up his rival's pedigree, for example,
and lower his pride (if need be) by detailing the disgraces of his kin.
"I have grand news the day!" a big-hearted Scot will exclaim (and when
their hearts are big they are big to hypertrophy)--"I have grand news
the day! Man, Jock Goudie has won the C.B."--"Jock Goudie"--an envious
bodie will pucker as if he had never heard the name--"Jock Goudie? Wha's
_he_ for a Goudie? Oh ay, let me see now. He's a brother o'--eh, a
brother o'--eh" (tit-tit-titting on his brow)--"oh, just a brother o'
Drucken Will Goudie o' Auchterwheeze! Oo-ooh, I ken _him_ fine. His
grannie keepit a sweetie-shop in Strathbungo." There you have the
"nesty" Scotsman.

Even if Gourlay had been a placable and inoffensive man, then, the
malignants of the petty burgh (it was scarce bigger than a village)
would have fastened on his character simply because he was above them.
No man has a keener eye for behaviour than the Scot (especially when
spite wings his intuition), and Gourlay's thickness of wit and pride of
place would in any case have drawn their sneers. So, too, on lower
grounds, would his wife's sluttishness. But his repressiveness added a
hundredfold to their hate of him. That was the particular cause which,
acting on their general tendency to belittle a too-successful rival,
made their spite almost monstrous against him. Not a man among them but
had felt the weight of his tongue--for edge it had none. He walked among
them like the dirt below his feet. There was no give and take in the
man; he could be verra joc