he sound of it.

On the Deacon's cheek bones two red spots flamed, round and big as a
Scotch penny. His was the hurt silence of the baffled diplomatist, to
whom a defeat means reflections on his own ability.

"Demn him!" he skirled, following the solid march of his enemy with
fiery eyes.

Never before had his deaconship been heard to swear. Tam Wylie laughed
at the shrill oath till his eyes were buried in his merry wrinkles, a
suppressed snirt, a continuous gurgle in the throat and nose, in beaming
survey the while of the withered old creature dancing in his rage. (It
was all a good joke to Tam, because, living on the outskirts of the
town, he had no spigot of his own to feed.) The Deacon turned the eyes
of hate on him. Demn Wylie too--what was he laughing at!

"Oh, I dare thay you could have got round him!" he snapped.

"In my opinion, Allardyce," said the baker, "you mismanaged the whole
affair. Yon wasna the way to approach him!"

"It'th a pity you didna try your hand, then, I'm sure! No doubt a clever
man like _you_ would have worked wonderth!"

So the bodies wrangled among themselves. Somehow or other Gourlay had
the knack of setting them by the ears. It was not till they hit on a
common topic of their spite in railing at him that they became a band of
brothers and a happy few.

"Whisht!" said Sandy Toddle suddenly; "here's his boy!"

John was coming towards them on his way to school. The bodies watched
him as he passed, with the fixed look men turn on a boy of whose kinsmen
they were talking even now. They affect a stony and deliberate regard,
partly to include the newcomer in their critical survey of his family,
and partly to banish from their own eyes any sign that they have just
been running down his people. John, as quick as his mother to feel, knew
in a moment they were watching _him_. He hung his head sheepishly and
blushed, and the moment he was past he broke into a nervous trot, the
bag of books bumping on his back as he ran.

"He's getting a big boy, that son of Gourlay's," said the Provost; "how
oald will he be?"

"He's approaching twelve," said Johnny Coe, who made a point of being
able to supply such news because it gained him consideration where he
was otherwise unheeded. "He was born the day the brig on the Fleckie
Road gaed down, in the year o' the great flood; and since the great
flood it's twelve year come Lammas. Rab Tosh o' Fleckie's wife was
heavy-footed at the time, and Doctor Mun