John, with his hands in his pockets, strutted across the yard, still watching Gilmour with that silent, offensive look. He came into the path of the whalebone. "Get out, you smeowt!" cried Gilmour, and with a vicious shove of the brush he sent a shower of dirty drops spattering about the boy's bare legs. "Hallo you! what are ye after?" bawled the boy. "Don't you try that on again, I'm telling ye. What are _you_, onyway? Ye're just a servant. Hay-ay-ay, my man, my faither's the boy for ye. _He_ can put ye in your place." Gilmour made to go at him with the head of the whalebone besom. John stooped and picked up the wet lump of cloth with which Gilmour had been washing down the horse's legs. "Would ye?" said Gilmour threateningly. "Would I no?" said John, the wet lump poised for throwing, level with his shoulder. But he did not throw it for all his defiant air. He hesitated. He would have liked to slash it into Gilmour's face, but a swift vision of what would happen if he did withheld his craving arm. His irresolution was patent in his face; in his eyes there were both a threat and a watchful fear. He kept the dirty cloth poised in mid-air. "Drap the clout," said Gilmour. "I'll no," said John. Gilmour turned sideways and whizzed the head of the besom round so that its dirty spray rained in the boy's face and eyes. John let him have the wet lump slash in his mouth. Gilmour dropped the besom and hit him a sounding thwack on the ear. John hullabalooed. Murther and desperation! Ere he had gathered breath for a second roar his mother was present in the yard. She was passionate in defence of her cub, and rage transformed her. Her tense frame vibrated in anger; you would scarce have recognized the weary trollop of the kitchen. "What's the matter, Johnny dear?" she cried, with a fierce glance at Gilmour. "Gilmour hut me!" he bellowed angrily. "Ye muckle lump!" she cried shrilly, the two scraggy muscles of her neck standing out long and thin as she screamed; "ye muckle lump--to strike a defenceless wean!--Dinna greet, my lamb; I'll no let him meddle ye.--Jock Gilmour, how daur ye lift your finger to a wean of mine? But I'll learn ye the better o't! Mr. Gourlay'll gie _you_ the order to travel ere the day's muckle aulder. I'll have no servant about _my_ hoose to ill-use _my_ bairn." She stopped, panting angrily for breath, and glared at her darling's enemy. "_Your_ servant!" cried Gilmour in contempt. "Ye're a nice-looking object to talk about servants." He pointed at her slovenly dress and burst into a blatant laugh: "Huh, huh, huh!" Mr. Gourlay had followed more slowly from the kitchen, as befitted a man of his superior character. He heard the row well enough, but considered it beneath him to hasten to a petty squabble. "What's this?" he demanded with a widening look. Gilmour scowled at the ground.