The House With the Green Shutters Read Online Free PDF Page A

nag and annoy her he
adopted a manner of hardness and repression to his son—which became
permanent. He was always "down" on John; the more so because Janet was
his own favourite—perhaps, again, because her mother seemed to neglect
her. Janet was a very unlovely child, with a long, tallowy face and a
pimply brow, over which a stiff fringe of whitish hair came down almost
to her staring eyes, the eyes themselves being large, pale blue, and
saucer-like, with a great margin of unhealthy white. But Gourlay, though
he never petted her, had a silent satisfaction in his daughter. He took
her about with him in the gig, on Saturday afternoons, when he went to
buy cheese and grain at the outlying farms. And he fed her rabbits when
she had the fever. It was a curious sight to see the dour, silent man
mixing oatmeal and wet tea-leaves in a saucer at the dirty kitchen
table, and then marching off to the hutch, with the ridiculous dish in
his hand, to feed his daughter's pets.
*
    A sudden yell of pain and alarm rang through the kitchen. It came from
the outer yard.
    When the boy, peering from the window above, saw his father disappear
through the scullery door, he stole out. The coast was clear at last.
    He passed through to the outer yard. Jock Gilmour had been dashing water
on the paved floor, and was now sweeping it out with a great whalebone
besom. The hissing whalebone sent a splatter of dirty drops showering in
front of it. John set his bare feet wide (he was only in his shirt and
knickers) and eyed the man whom his father had "downed" with a kind of
silent swagger. He felt superior. His pose was instinct with the
feeling: "
My
father is
your
master, and ye daurna stand up till
him." Children of masterful sires often display that attitude towards
dependants. The feeling is not the less real for being subconscious.
    Jock Gilmour was still seething with a dour anger because Gourlay's
quiet will had ground him to the task. When John came out and stood
there, he felt tempted to vent on him the spite he felt against his
father. The subtle suggestion of criticism and superiority in the boy's
pose intensified the wish. Not that Gilmour acted from deliberate
malice; his irritation was instinctive. Our wrath against those whom we
fear is generally wreaked upon those whom we don't.
    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