g both of the Scotch terrier and the London sparrow--the
shagginess of the one, the cocked eye of the other; the one's snarling
temper, the other's assured impudence. In Gourlay's day he had never got
by the gateway of the yard, much as he had wanted to come further.
Gourlay had an eye for a thing like him. "Damn the gurly brute!" Postie
complained once; "when I passed a pleasand remark about the weather the
other morning, he just looked at me and blew the reek of his pipe in my
face. And that was his only answer!"

Now that Gourlay was gone, however, Postie clattered through the yard
every morning, right up to the back door.

"A heap o' correspondence _thir_ mornin's!" he would simper, his greedy
little eye trying to glean revelations from the women's faces as they
took the letters from his hand.

On the morning after young Gourlay came home for the last time, Postie
was pelting along with his quick thudding step near the head of the
Square, when whom should he meet but Sandy Toddle, still unwashed and
yawning from his bed. It was early, and the streets were empty, except
where in the distance the bent figure of an old man was seen hirpling
off to his work, first twisting round stiffly to cock his eye right and
left at the sky, to forecast the weather for the day.

From the chimneys the fair white spirlies of reek were rising in the
pure air. The Gourlays did not seem to be stirring yet; there was no
smoke above their roof-tree to show that there was life within.

Postie jerked his thumb across his shoulder at the House with the Green
Shutters.

"There'll be chynges there the day," he said, chirruping.

"Wha-at!" Toddle breathed in a hoarse whisper of astonishment,
"sequesteration?" and he stared, big-eyed, with his brows arched.

"Something o' that kind," said the post carelessly. "I'm no' weel
acquaint wi' the law-wers' lingo."

"Will't be true, think ye?" said Sandy.

"God, it's true," said the post. "I had it frae Jock Hutchison, the
clerk in Skeighan Goudie's. He got fou yestreen on the road to Barbie
and blabbed it--he'll lose his job, yon chap, if he doesna keep his
mouth shut. True! ay, it's true! There's damn the doubt o' that."

Toddle corrugated his mouth to whistle. He turned and stared at the
House with the Green Shutters, gawcey and substantial on its terrace,
beneath the tremulous beauty of the dawn. There was a glorious sunrise.

"God!" he said, "what a downcome for that hoose!"

"Is it n