nd you and me can aye thole."

In the morning Mrs. Gourlay brought two greasy notes to the table, and
placed them in her son's slack hand. He was saner now; he had slept off
his drunken madness through the night.

"John," she said, in pitiful appeal, "you maunna stay here, laddie.
Ye'll gie up the drink when you're away--will ye na?--and then thae een
ye're sae feared of'll no trouble you ony mair. Gang to Glasgow and see
the lawyer folk about the bond. And, John dear," she pleaded, "if
there's nothing left for us, you'll try to work for Janet and me, will
ye no? You've a grand education, and you'll surely get a place as a
teacher or something; I'm sure you would make a grand teacher. Ye
wouldna like to think of your mother trailing every week to the like of
Wilson for an awmous, streeking out her auld hand for charity. The folk
would stand in their doors to look at me, man--they would that--they
would cry ben to each other to come oot and see Gourlay's wife gaun
slinkin' doon the brae. Doon the brae it would be," she repeated, "doon
the brae it would be"--and her mind drifted away on the sorrowful future
which her fear made so vivid and real. It was only John's going that
roused her.

Thomas Brodie, glowering abroad from a shop door festooned in boots, his
leather apron in front, and his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat,
as befitted an important man, saw young Gourlay pass the Cross with his
bag in his hand, and dwindle up the road to the station.

"Where's _he_ off to now?" he muttered. "There's something at the boddom
o' this, if a body could find it out!"

CHAPTER XXVII.

When John had gone his mother roused herself to a feverish industry.
Even in the early days of her strength she had never been so busy in her
home. But her work was aimless and to no purpose. When tidying she would
take a cup without its saucer from the table, and set off with it
through the room, but stopping suddenly in the middle of the floor,
would fall into a muse with the dish in her hand; coming to herself long
afterwards to ask vaguely, "What's this cup for?... Janet, lassie, what
was it I was doing?" Her energy, and its frustration, had the same
reason. The burden on her mind constantly impelled her to do something
to escape from it, and the same burden paralyzed her mind in everything
she did. So with another of her vacant whims. Every morning she rose at
an unearthly hour, to fish out of old closets rag-bags bellied