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Updated: June 3, 2025
When he came to the Cross a long string of carts was filing from the Skeighan Road, and passing across to the street leading Fleckie-ward. He knew them to be Wilson's. The Deacon was there, of course, hobbling on his thin shanks, and cocking his eye to see everything that happened. "What does this mean?" Gourlay asked him, though he loathed the Deacon.
And the moment after he would splurge and bluster to reassert his dignity. "I remember when I was a boy," he hiccupped, "I had a pet goose at home." There was a titter at the queer beginning. "I was to get the price of it for myself, and so when Christmas drew near I went to old MacFarlane, the poulterer in Skeighan. 'Will you buy a goose? said I. 'Are ye for sale, my man? was his answer."
I would work my fingers raw for ye if I could, but I canna," she screamed, "I canna, I canna! My lungs are bye wi't. On Tuesday in Skeighan the doctor telled me I would soon be deid; he didna say't, but fine I saw what he was hinting. He advised me to gang to Ventnor in the Isle o' Wight," she added wanly; "as if I could gang to the Isle of Wight.
The two other chief grocers in the place, Cunningham the dirty and Calderwood the drunken, having no carts or horses of their own, were dependent on Gourlay for conveyance of their goods from Skeighan. But Wilson brought his own. Naturally, he was asked by his customers to bring a parcel now and then, and naturally, being the man he was, he made them pay for the privilege.
Like many another robustious big toper, the Templar was a chicken at heart, and "to be in with Gourlay" lent him a consequence that covered his deficiency. "Yes, I'm sleepy," he would yawn in Skeighan Mart; "I had a sederunt yestreen wi' John Gourlay," and he would slap his boot with his riding-switch and feel like a hero. "I know how it is, I know how it is!"
He read slowly and without interest. The sounds of the outer world reached him in his loneliness and annoyed him, because, while wondering what they were, he dared not look out to see. He heard the rattle of wheels entering the big yard; that would be Peter Riney back from Skeighan with the range.
"The Skeighan Road! the Skeighan Road! Who'll he be going to see in that airt? Will it be Templandmuir?" "Gosh, it canna be Templandmuir; he was there no later than yestreen!" "Here's a man coming down the brae!" announced Johnny Coe, in a solemn voice, as if a man "coming down the brae" was something unusual. In a moment every head was turned to the hill.
"He'll be drinking in some public-house, I'se warrant, and the doag will have lost him." "Imph, that'll be the way o't." "I'm demned if he hasn't taken the Skeighan Road!" said Sandy Toddle, who had kept his eye on the minister. Toddle's accent was a varying quality. When he remembered he had been a packman in England it was exceedingly fine. But he often forgot.
So John was put to the High School of Skeighan, travelling backwards and forwards night and morning by the train, after the railway had been opened. And he discovered, on trying it, that the life was not so bad as he had feared. He hated his lessons, true, and avoided them whenever he was able.
He was not to be done; he would show the dogs what he thought of them. In those days it came to pass that Wilson sent his son to the High School of Skeighan even James, the red-haired one, with the squint in his eye. Whereupon Gourlay sent his son to the High School of Skeighan too, of course, to be upsides with Wilson.
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