n; and so he played with the victim
which he would not kill.

"Set out the speerits, Jenny," he birred, when she wavered in fear.
"What are ye shaking for? Set out the speerits--just to shelebrate the
joyful occeesion, ye know--ay, ay, just to shelebrate the joyful
occeesion!"

Janet brought a tray, with glasses, from the pantry. As she walked, the
rims of the glasses shivered and tinkled against each other, from her
trembling. Then she set a bottle on the table.

Gourlay sent it crashing to the floor. "A bottle!" he roared. "A bottle
for huz twa! To hell wi' bottles! The jar, Jenny, the jar; set out the
jar, lass, set out the jar. For we mean to make a night of it, this
gentleman and me. Ay," he yawed with a vicious smile, "we'll make a
night o't--we two. A night that Barbie'll remember loang!"

"Have ye skill o' drink?" he asked, turning to his son.

"No," wheezed John.

"No!" cried his father. "I thought ye learned everything at College!
Your education's been neglected. But I'll teach ye a lesson or _this_
nicht's by. Ay, by God," he growled, "I'll teach ye a lesson."

Curb his temper as he might, his own behaviour was lashing it to frenzy.
Through the moaning intensity peculiar to his vicious rage there leapt
at times a wild-beast snarl. Every time they heard it, it cut the veins
of his listeners with a start of fear--it leapt so suddenly.

"Ha'e, sir!" he cried.

John raised his dull, white face and looked across at the bumper which
his father poured him. But he felt the limbs too weak beneath him to go
and take it.

"Bide where ye are!" sneered his father, "bide where ye are! I'll wait
on ye; I'll wait on ye. Man, I waited on ye the day that ye were bo-orn!
The heavens were hammering the world as John Gourla' rode through the
storm for a doctor to bring hame his heir. The world was feared, but
_he_ wasna feared," he roared in Titanic pride, "_he_ wasna feared; no,
by God, for he never met what scaured him!... Ay, ay," he birred softly
again, "ay, ay, ye were ushered loudly to the world, serr! Verra
appropriate for a man who was destined to make such a name!... Eh?...
Verra appropriate, serr; verra appropriate! And you'll be ushered just
as loudly out o't. Oh, young Gourlay's death maun make a splurge, ye
know--a splurge to attract folk's attention!"

John's shaking hand was wet with the spilled whisky.

"Take it off," sneered his father, boring into him with a vicious eye;
"take it off, serr; take o