John could not speak; he was paralyzed by fear. To have this vast hostile force touch him, yet be still, struck him dumb. Why did his father not break out on him at once? What did he mean? What was he going to do? The jamb of the fireplace cut his right shoulder as he cowered into it, to get away as far as he could. "I'm saying ... ye've won hame!" quivered Gourlay in a deadly slowness, and his eyes never left his son. And still the son made no reply. In the silence the ticking of the big clock seemed to fill their world. They were conscious of nothing else. It smote the ear. "Ay," John gulped at last from a throat that felt closing. The answer seemed dragged out of him by the insistent silence. "Just so-a!" breathed his father, and his eyes opened in wide flame. He heaved with the great breath he drew.... "Im-phm!" he drawled. He went through to the scullery at the back of the kitchen to wash his hands. Through the open door Janet and her mother--looking at each other with affrighted eyes--could hear him sneering at intervals, "Ay, man!"... "Just that, now!"... "Im-phm!" And again, "Ay, ay!... Dee-ee-ar me!" in grim, falsetto irony. When he came back to the kitchen he turned to Janet, and left his son in a suspended agony. "Ay, woman, Jenny, ye're there!" he said, and nipped her ear as he passed over to his chair. "Were ye in Skeighan the day?" "Ay, faither," she answered. "And what did the Skeighan doctor say?" She raised her large pale eyes to his with a strange look. Then her head sank low on her breast. "Nothing!" she said at last. "Nothing!" said he. "Nothing for nothing, then. I hope you didna pay him?" "No, faither," she answered. "I hadna the bawbees." "When did ye get back?" he asked. "Just after--just after----" Her eyes flickered over to John, as if she were afraid of mentioning his name. "Oh, just after this gentleman! But there's noathing strange in tha-at; you were always after him. You were born after him, and considered after him; he aye had the best o't.--I howp _you_ are in good health?" he sneered, turning to his son. "It would never do for a man to break down at the outset o' a great career!... For ye _are_ at the outset o' a great career; are ye na?" His speech was as soft as the foot of a tiger, and sheathed as rending a cruelty. There was no escaping the crouching stealth of it. If he had leapt with a roar, John's drunken fury might have lashed itself to rage. But the younger and weaker man was fascinated and helpless before the creeping approach of so monstrous a wrath. "Eh?" asked Gourlay softly, when John made no reply; "I'm saying you're at the outset o' a great career; are ye no? Eh?" Soft as his "Eh" was in utterance, it was insinuating, pursuing; it had to be answered. "No," whimpered John. "Well, well; you're maybe at the end o't! Have ye been studying hard?" "Yes," lied John.