.

He was meaning to drive, of course; Gourlay was proud of his gig, and
always kept a spanking roadster. "What a fine figure of a man!" you
thought, as you saw him coming swiftly towards you, seated high on his
driving cushion. That driving cushion was Gourlay's pedestal from which
he looked down on Barbie for many a day.

A quick step, yet shambling, came along the lobby. There was a pause, as
of one gathering heart for a venture; then a clumsy knock on the door.

"Come in," snapped Gourlay.

Peter Riney's queer little old face edged timorously into the room. He
only opened the door the width of his face, and looked ready to bolt at
a word.

"Tam's deid!" he blurted.

Gourlay gashed himself frightfully with his razor, and a big red blob
stood out on his cheek.

"Deid!" he stared.

"Yes," stammered Peter. "He was right enough when Elshie gae him his
feed this morning; but when I went in enow to put the harness on, he was
lying deid in the loose-box. The batts--it's like."

For a moment Gourlay stared with the open mouth of an angry surprise,
forgetting to take down his razor.

"Aweel, Peter," he said at last, and Peter went away.

The loss of his pony touched Gourlay to the quick. He had been stolid
and dour in his other misfortunes, had taken them as they came, calmly;
he was not the man to whine and cry out against the angry heavens. He
had neither the weakness nor the width of nature to indulge in the
luxury of self-pity. But the sudden death of his gallant roadster, his
proud pacer through the streets of Barbie, touched him with a sense of
quite personal loss and bereavement. Coming on the heels of his other
calamities it seemed to make them more poignant, more sinister,
prompting the question if misfortune would never have an end.

"Damn it, I have enough to thole," Gourlay muttered; "surely there was
no need for this to happen." And when he looked in the mirror to fasten
his stock, and saw the dark, strong, clean-shaven face, he stared at it
for a moment, with a curious compassion for the man before him, as for
one who was being hardly used. The hard lips could never have framed the
words, but the vague feeling in his heart, as he looked at the dark
vision, was: "It's a pity of you, sir."

He put on his coat rapidly, and went out to the stable. An instinct
prompted him to lock the door.

He entered the loose-box. A shaft of golden light, aswarm with motes,
slanted in the quietness. Tam lay on th