"He micht hae letten puir Doog owe him the bit shillin' or twa and never missed it!" represented the general sense of the community.
But Doog himself, be his faults what they might, allowed none to speak ill of Nathan Monypenny.
Did he not half choke the life out of Davie Hoatson for some hinted comment (it was never clearly understood what), till they had to be separated by kindly violence, Doog being yet unappeased? Furthermore, did he not seek the jester for three whole days, all the time breathing fire and fury, with intent to choke the other half of a worthless life out of him?
This was the state of the case when Nathan Monypenny's life temptation came upon him. It was a grim and notable January night—the fourth day of the great thaw. The rain had gusted and blown and threshed and pelted upon those window-panes of Whinnyliggate which looked towards the west, till there was not a speck of dirt upon them anywhere, except on the inside. The snow had melted fast under the pitiless downpour, and the patient sheep stood about behind dyke-backs, or with the courage of despair pushed through holes in bedraggled hedges, to take a furtive nibble at the brown stubble of last year's cornfields.
It was half-past nine when Nathan went to his door to look out. Nathan Monypenny had built himself a lobby, and so was thought to be "upsetting." At that time for a man to wear a white collar on weekdays, or to walk with his hands out of his pockets, for a woman to be "dressed" in the forenoon, or to wear gloves except when actually entering the kirk door, for a householder to whitewash his premises oftener than once in five years, or to erect a porch to his dwelling, was held to be "upsetting"—that is, he (or she) was evidently setting up to be better than their neighbours—an iniquity as unpopular in Whinnyliggate as elsewhere in the world.
From this "upsetting" porch, then, Nathan looked out. A dash of rain, solid as if the little house had shipped a sea in a perilous ocean passage, took Nathan about the ankles and rebuked him in a very practical fashion for coming to the door, as is Galloway custom, in his "stocking-feet." It had blown in from a broken "roan" pipe, which Nathan had been intending to mend as soon as the snow went off the root.
Nathan shut the door and went within. He had seen little through the blackness save the bright lights of the "Golden Lion," and heard nothing above the long-drawn whoo of the storm save the noisy chorus of the drinking song which Doog Carnochan was singing. Nathan knew it was Doog's voice. About this he could make no mistake. Had he not listened to it long ago, when Doog sang in the village choir, knowing all the while, full well, that he was singing his Dahlia's heart out of her bosom? Nathan Monypenny sighed and thought of that desolate house down at the other end of the street where that same Dahlia would even then be putting her children to bed. He knew just the faintly wearied look there would be on the face from which the youthful roses had long since faded. He would have given all he possessed in the world to sit and watch her thus, to comfort her in her loneliness; but, resolutely putting the temptation aside, he drew the great Bible that had been his father's off its shelf and laid it on the table.
Then he brought a new candle from the shop and lighted it. But, so great was the storm without that even in that comfortable inner room the draught blew the flame about and the words seemed to dance on the printed page.
Again and again during his reading Nathan lifted his head and listened. The "wag-at-the-wa'" clock struck ten with enormous birr and clatter, beginning with a buzz of anticipation five minutes too soon, and continuing to emit applausive "curmurrings" of internal satisfaction for full five minutes after the actual stroke of the hour had died on the ear.
Nathan paused in his reading to listen for the sound of the roysterers' feet going homeward from the "Golden Lion." Doog would be one of those, most likely the drunkest and the noisiest. He must be half-way down the street by now, stumbling along with trippings and foul, irresponsible words. Now Dahlia would be opening the door to him—Nathan knew the look on her face. When he shut his eyes he could see it even more clearly. In the middle dark of the night, when he lay sleepless, staring at the ceiling, he could see it most clearly of all.