ay must come out
and interfere! But I telled him to his face what I thocht of _him!_ 'The
best Gourlay that ever dirtied leather,' says I, ''s no gaun to make
dirt of me,' says I."

"Ay, man, Dyohn!" lisped Deacon Allardyce, with bright and eagerly
inquiring eyes. "And what did he thay to that na? _That_ wath a dig for
him! I'the warrant he wath angry."

"Angry? He foamed at the mouth! But I up and says to him, 'I have had
enough o' you,' says I, 'you and your Hoose wi' the Green Shutters,'
says I. 'You're no fit to have a decent servant,' says I. 'Pay _me my_
wages, and I'll be redd o' ye,' says I. And wi' that I flang my kist on
my shouther and slapped the gate ahint me."

"And _did_ he pay ye your wages?" Tam Wylie probed him slyly, with a
sideward glimmer in his eye.

"Ah, well, no--not exactly," said Gilmour, drawing in. "But I'll get
them right enough for a' that. He'll no get the better o' _me_." Having
grounded unpleasantly on the question of the wages, he thought it best
to be off ere the bloom was dashed from his importance, so he
shouldered his chest and went. The bodies watched him down the street.

"He's a lying brose, that," said the baker. "We a' ken what Gourlay is.
He would have flung Gilmour out by the scruff o' the neck if he had
daured to set his tongue against him!"

"Faith, that's so," said Tam Wylie and Johnny Coe together.

But the others were divided between their perception of the fact and
their wish to believe that Gourlay had received a thrust or two. At
other times they would have been the first to scoff at Gilmour's
swagger. Now their animus against Gourlay prompted them to back it up.

"Oh, I'm not so sure of tha-at, baker," cried the Provost, in the false,
loud voice of a man defending a position which he knows to be unsound;
"I'm no so sure of that at a-all. A-a-ah, mind ye," he drawled
persuasively, "he's a hardy fallow, that Gilmour. I've no doubt he gied
Gourlay a good dig or two. Let us howp they will do him good."

For many reasons intimate to the Scot's character, envious scandal is
rampant in petty towns such as Barbie. To go back to the beginning, the
Scot, as pundits will tell you, is an individualist. His religion alone
is enough to make him so; for it is a scheme of personal salvation
significantly described once by the Reverend Mr. Struthers of Barbie.
"At the Day of Judgment, my frehnds," said Mr. Struthers--"at the Day of
Judgment every herring must hang by his ow