"How can it be that, Provost? It'th your place, surely. You're the head of the town!"
When Gourlay was to be approached there was always a competition for who should be hindmost.
"Yass, but you know perfectly well, Deacon, that I cannot thole the look of him. I simply cannot thole the look. And he knows it too. The thing'll gang smash at the outset—I'm talling ye, now—it'll go smash at the outset if it's left to me. And than, ye see, you have a better way of approaching folk!"
"Ith that tho?" said the Deacon dryly. He shot a suspicious glance to see if the Provost was guying him.
"Oh, it must be left to you, Deacon," said the baker and Tam Wylie in a breath.
"Certainly, it maun be left to the Deacon," assented Johnny Coe, when he saw how the others were giving their opinion.
"Tho be it, then," snapped the Deacon.
"Here he comes," said Sandy Toddle.
Gourlay came down the street towards them, his chest big, his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat. He had the power of staring steadily at those whom he approached without the slightest sign of recognition or intelligence appearing in his eyes. As he marched down upon the bodies he fixed them with a wide-open glower that was devoid of every expression but courageous steadiness. It gave a kind of fierce vacancy to his look.
The Deacon limped forward on his thin shanks to the middle of the road.