"No," whimpered John.
"Well, well; you're maybe at the end o't! Have ye been studying hard?"
"Yes," lied John.
"That's right!" cried his father with great heartiness. "There's my brave fellow! Noathing like studying!... And no doubt"—he leaned over suavely—"and no doubt ye've brought a wheen prizes home wi' ye as usual? Eh?"
There was no answer.
"Eh?"
"No," gulped the cowerer.
"Nae prizes!" cried Gourlay, and his eyebrows went up in a pretended surprise. "Nae-ae prizes! Ay, man! Fow's that, na?"
Young Gourlay was being reduced to the condition of a beaten child, who, when his mother asks if he has been a bad boy, is made to sob "Yes" at her knee. "Have you been a good boy?" she asks—"No," he pants; and "Are you sorry for being a bad boy?"—"Yes," he sobs; and "Will you be a good boy now, then?"—"Yes," he almost shrieks, in his desire to be at one with his mother. Young Gourlay was being equally beaten from his own nature, equally battered under by another personality. Only he was not asked to be a good boy. He might gang to hell for anything auld Gourlay cared—when once he had bye with him.