It is in a small place like Barbie that such malignity is most virulent, because in a small place like Barbie every man knows everything to his neighbour's detriment. He can redd up his rival's pedigree, for example, and lower his pride (if need be) by detailing the disgraces of his kin. "I have grand news the day!" a big-hearted Scot will exclaim (and when their hearts are big they are big to hypertrophy)—"I have grand news the day! Man, Jock Goudie has won the C.B."—"Jock Goudie"—an envious bodie will pucker as if he had never heard the name—"Jock Goudie? Wha's he for a Goudie? Oh ay, let me see now. He's a brother o'—eh, a brother o'—eh" (tit-tit-titting on his brow)—"oh, just a brother o' Drucken Will Goudie o' Auchterwheeze! Oo-ooh, I ken him fine. His grannie keepit a sweetie-shop in Strathbungo." There you have the "nesty" Scotsman.
Even if Gourlay had been a placable and inoffensive man, then, the malignants of the petty burgh (it was scarce bigger than a village) would have fastened on his character simply because he was above them. No man has a keener eye for behaviour than the Scot (especially when spite wings his intuition), and Gourlay's thickness of wit and pride of place would in any case have drawn their sneers. So, too, on lower grounds, would his wife's sluttishness. But his repressiveness added a hundredfold to their hate of him. That was the particular cause which, acting on their general tendency to belittle a too-successful rival, made their spite almost monstrous against him. Not a man among them but had felt the weight of his tongue—for edge it had none. He walked among them like the dirt below his feet. There was no give and take in the man; he could be verra jocose with the lairds, to be sure, but he never dropped in to the Red Lion for a crack and a dram with the town-folk; he just glowered as if he could devour them! And who was he, I should like to know? His grandfather had been noathing but a common carrier!
Hate was the greater on both sides because it was often impotent. Gourlay frequently suspected offence, and seethed because he had no idea how to meet it—except by driving slowly down the brae in his new gig and never letting on when the Provost called to him. That was a wipe in the eye for the Provost! The "bodies," on their part, could rarely get near enough Gourlay to pierce his armour; he kept them off him by his brutal dourness. For it was not only pride and arrogance, but a consciousness also that he was no match for them at their own game, that kept Gourlay away from their society. They were adepts at the under stroke, and they would have given him many a dig if he had only come amongst them. But, oh no, not he; he was the big man; he never gave a body a chance! Or if you did venture a bit jibe when you met him, he glowered you off the face of the earth with thae black een of his. Oh, how they longed to get at him! It was not the least of the evils caused by Gourlay's black pride that it perverted a dozen characters. The "bodies" of Barbie may have been decent enough men in their own way, but against him their malevolence was monstrous. It showed itself in an insane desire to seize on every scrap of gossip they might twist against him. That was why the Provost lowered municipal dignity to gossip in the street with a discharged servant. As the baker said afterwards, it was absurd for a man in his "poseetion." But it was done with the sole desire of hearing something that might tell against Gourlay. Even countesses, we are told, gossip with malicious maids about other countesses. Spite is a great leveller.
"Shall we adjourn?" said Brodie, when they had watched Jock Gilmour out of sight. He pointed across his shoulder to the Red Lion.
"Better noat just now," said the Provost, nodding in slow authority—"better noat just now! I'm very anxious to see Gourlay about yon matter we were speaking of, doan't ye understa-and? But I'm determined not to go to his house! On the other hand, if we go into the Red Lion the now, we may miss him on the street. We'll noat have loang to wait, though; he'll be down the town directly, to look at the horses he has at the gerse out the Fechars Road. But I'm talling ye, I simply will noat go to his house—to put up with a wheen damned insults!" he puffed in angry recollection.
"To tell the truth," said Wylie, "I don't like to call upon Gourlay either. I'm aware of his eyes on my back when I slink beaten through his gate, and I feel that my hurdies are wanting in dignity!"
"Huh!" spluttered Brodie, "that never affects me. I come stunting out in a bleeze of wrath and slam the yett ahint me!"
"Oh, well," said the Deacon, "that'th one way of being dignified."
"I'm afraid," said Sandy Toddle, "that he won't be in a very good key to consider our request this morning, after his quarrel with Gilmour."
"No," said the Provost; "he'll be blazing angry! It's most unfoartunate. But we maun try to get his consent, be his temper what it will. It's a matter of importance to the town, doan't ye see, and if he refuses we simply can-noat proceed wi' the improvement."