He knocked again. The sound of his knuckles on the door rang out hollowly, as if there was nothing but emptiness within. While he waited he turned on the step and looked idly at the courtyard. The inwalled little place was curiously still.
At last in his impatience he turned the handle, when to his surprise the door opened, and let him enter.
The leaves of a Bible fluttered in the fresh wind from the door. A large lamp was burning on the table. Its big yellow flame was unnatural in the sunshine.
"H'mph!" said Postie, tossing his chin in disgust, "little wonder everything gaed to wreck and ruin in this house! The slovens have left the lamp burning the whole nicht lang. But less licht'll serve them now, I'm thinking!"
A few dead ashes were sticking from the lower bars of the range. Postie crossed to the fireplace and looked down at the fender. That bright spot would be the place, now, where auld Gourlay killed himself. The women must have rubbed it so bright in trying to get out the blood. It was an uncanny thing to keep in the house that. He stared at the fatal spot till he grew eerie in the strange stillness.
"Guidwife!" he cried, "Jennet! Don't ye hear?"
They did not hear, it seemed.
"God!" said he, "they sleep sound after all their misfortunes!"
At last—partly in impatience, and partly from a wish to pry—he opened the door of the parlour. "Oh, my God!" he screamed, leaping back, and with his bulky bag got stuck in the kitchen door, in his desperate hurry to be gone.