"My God!" he cried, "had I not enough to thole?"
"Aha!" thought Postie, "yon letter Wilson got this morning was correct, then! His son had sent the true story. That letter o' Gourlay's had the Edinburgh postmark; somebody has sent him word about his son.—Lord! what a tit-bit for my rounds."
Mrs. Gourlay, who was washing dishes, looked up to see her husband standing in the kitchen door. His face frightened her. She had often seen the blaze in his eye, and often the dark scowl, but never this bloodless pallor in his cheek. Yet his eyes were flaming.
"Ay, ay," he birred, "a fine job you have made of him!"
"Oh, what is it?" she quavered, and the dish she was wiping clashed on the floor.
"That's it!" said he, "that's it! Breck the dishes next; breck the dishes! Everything seems gaun to smash. If ye keep on lang eneugh, ye'll put a bonny end till't or ye're bye wi't—the lot o' ye."
The taunt passed in the anxiety that stormed her.
"Tell me, see!" she cried, imperious in stress of appeal. "Oh, what is it, John?" She stretched out her thin, red hands, and clasped them tightly before her. "Is it from Embro? Is there ainything the matter with my boy? Is there ainything the matter with my boy?"
The hard eye surveyed her a while in grim contempt of her weakness. She was a fluttering thing in his grip.
"Every thing's the matter with your boy," he sneered slowly, "every thing's the matter with your boy. And it's your fault too, damn you, for you always spoiled him!"