"I ken fine how he married her," said Johnny Coe. "I was acquaint wi' her faither, auld Tenshillingland owre at Fechars--a grand farmer he was, wi' land o' his nain, and a gey pickle bawbees. It was the bawbees, and not the woman, that Gourlay went after! It was _her_ money, as ye ken, that set him on his feet, and made him such a big man. He never cared a preen for _her_, and then when she proved a dirty trollop, he couldna endure her look! That's what makes him so sore upon her now. And yet I mind her a braw lass, too," said Johnny the sentimentalist, "a braw lass she was," he mused, "wi' fine, brown glossy hair, I mind, and--ochonee! ochonee!--as daft as a yett in a windy day. She had a cousin, Jenny Wabster, that dwelt in Tenshillingland than, and mony a summer nicht up the Fechars Road, when ye smelled the honeysuckle in the gloaming, I have heard the two o' them tee-heeing owre the lads thegither, skirling in the dark and lauching to themselves. They were of the glaikit kind ye can always hear loang before ye see. Jock Allan (that has done so well in Embro) was a herd at Tenshillingland than, and he likit her, and I think she likit him; but Gourlay came wi' his gig and whisked her away. She doesna lauch sae muckle now, puir bodie! But a braw lass she----" "It's you maun speak to Gourlay, Deacon," said the Provost, brushing aside the reminiscent Coe. "How can it be that, Provost? It'th _your_ place, surely. You're the head of the town!" When Gourlay was to be approached there was always a competition for who should be hindmost. "Yass, but you know perfectly well, Deacon, that I cannot thole the look of him. I simply cannot thole the look. And he knows it too. The thing'll gang smash at the outset--_I'm_ talling ye, now--it'll go smash at the outset if it's left to me. And than, ye see, you have a better way of approaching folk!" "Ith that tho?" said the Deacon dryly. He shot a suspicious glance to see if the Provost was guying him. "Oh, it must be left to you, Deacon," said the baker and Tam Wylie in a breath. "Certainly, it maun be left to the Deacon," assented Johnny Coe, when he saw how the others were giving their opinion. "Tho be it, then," snapped the Deacon. "Here he comes," said Sandy Toddle. Gourlay came down the street towards them, his chest big, his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat. He had the power of staring steadily at those whom he approached without the slightest sign of recognition or intelligence appearing in his eyes. As he marched down upon the bodies he fixed them with a wide-open glower that was devoid of every expression but courageous steadiness. It gave a kind of fierce vacancy to his look. The Deacon limped forward on his thin shanks to the middle of the road. "It'th a fine morning, Mr. Gourlay," he simpered. "There's noathing wrong with the morning," grunted Gourlay, as if there was something wrong with the Deacon.