at
the letter in his clenched fist with a look of horror, as if it had
stung him.

"My God!" he cried, "had _I_ not enough to thole?"

"Aha!" thought Postie, "yon letter Wilson got this morning was correct,
then! His son had sent the true story. That letter o' Gourlay's had the
Edinburgh postmark; somebody has sent him word about his son.--Lord!
what a tit-bit for my rounds."

Mrs. Gourlay, who was washing dishes, looked up to see her husband
standing in the kitchen door. His face frightened her. She had often
seen the blaze in his eye, and often the dark scowl, but never this
bloodless pallor in his cheek. Yet his eyes were flaming.

"Ay, ay," he birred, "a fine job you have made of him!"

"Oh, what is it?" she quavered, and the dish she was wiping clashed on
the floor.

"That's it!" said he, "that's it! Breck the dishes next; breck the
dishes! Everything seems gaun to smash. If ye keep on lang eneugh, ye'll
put a bonny end till't or ye're bye wi't--the lot o' ye."

The taunt passed in the anxiety that stormed her.

"Tell me, see!" she cried, imperious in stress of appeal. "Oh, what is
it, John?" She stretched out her thin, red hands, and clasped them
tightly before her. "Is it from Embro? Is there ainything the matter
with _my_ boy? Is there ainything the matter with _my_ boy?"

The hard eye surveyed her a while in grim contempt of her weakness. She
was a fluttering thing in his grip.

"_Every_ thing's the matter with _your_ boy," he sneered slowly,
"_every_ thing's the matter with _your_ boy. And it's your fault too,
damn you, for you always spoiled him!"

With sudden wrath he strode over to the famous range and threw the
letter within the great fender.

"What is it?" he cried, wheeling round on his wife. "The son you were so
wild about sending to College has been flung in disgrace from its door!
That's what it is!" He swept from the house like a madman.

Mrs. Gourlay sank into her old nursing chair and wailed, "Oh, my wean,
my wean; my dear, my poor dear!" She drew the letter from the ashes, but
could not read it for her tears. The words "drunkenness" and "expulsion"
swam before her eyes. The manner of his disgrace she did not care to
hear; she only knew her first-born was in sorrow.

"Oh, my son, my son," she cried; "my laddie, my wee laddie!" She was
thinking of the time when he trotted at her petticoat.

It was market-day, and Gourlay must face the town. There was interest
due on a mortgage wh