ellow!" he whined, turning to his son; "poo-oor fellow! I fear he
has lost his pheesic. For that was the last bottle o' brandy in my
aucht; the last John Gourlay had, the last he'll ever buy. What am I to
do wi' ye now?... Eh?... I must do something; it's coming to the bit
now, sir."

As he stood in a heaving silence the sobbing of the two women was heard
through the room. John was still swaying on the floor.

Sometimes Gourlay would run the full length of the kitchen, and stand
there glowering on a stoop; then he would come crouching up to his son
on a vicious little trot, pattering in rage, the broken glass crunching
and grinding beneath his feet. At any moment he might spring.

"What do ye think I mean to do wi' ye now?" he moaned.... "Eh?... What
do ye think I mean to do wi' ye now?"

As he came grinning in rage his lips ran out to their full width, and
the tense slit showed his teeth to their roots. The gums were white. The
stricture of the lips had squeezed them bloodless.

He went back to the dresser once more and bent low beside it, glancing
at his son across his left shoulder, with his head flung back sideways,
his right fist clenched low and ready from a curve of the elbow. It
swung heavy as a mallet by his thigh. Janet got to her knees and came
shuffling across the floor on them, though her dress was tripping her,
clasping her outstretched hands, and sobbing in appeal, "Faither,
faither; O faither; for God's sake, faither!" She clung to him. He
unclenched his fist and lifted her away. Then he came crouching and
quivering across the floor slowly, a gleaming devilry in the eyes that
devoured his son. His hands were like outstretched claws, and shivered
with each shiver of the voice that moaned, through set teeth, "What do
ye think I mean to do wi' ye now?... What do ye think I mean to do wi'
ye now?... Ye damned sorrow and disgrace that ye are, what do ye think I
mean to do wi' ye now?"

"Run, John!" screamed Mrs. Gourlay, leaping to her feet. With a hunted
cry young Gourlay sprang to the door. So great had been the fixity of
Gourlay's wrath, so tense had he been in one direction, as he moved
slowly on his prey, that he could not leap to prevent him. As John
plunged into the cool, soft darkness, his mother's "Thank God!" rang
past him on the night.

His immediate feeling was of coolness and width and spaciousness, in
contrast with the hot grinding hostility that had bored so closely in on
him for the la