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022 - Chapter 22 · House with the Green Shutters

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty two of the House with the Green Shutters.
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  Speaker 1: This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
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  Speaker 1: the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please
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  Speaker 1: visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Lenn Nicholson. The House
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  Speaker 1: with the Green Shutters by George Douglas Brown, chapter twenty two. Aha, Deacon,
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  Speaker 1: my old cock, here ye are, the speaker smote the
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  Speaker 1: deacon between his thin shoulder blades till the hat leapt
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  Speaker 1: on his startled cranium. No, not a lengthy stay, just
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  Speaker 1: down for a flying visit to see my little girl.
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  Speaker 1: Damned glad to get back to town again. Barbie's too
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  Speaker 1: quiet for my tastes. No life in a place, no
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  Speaker 1: life at all. The speaker was davy, aired, draper and
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  Speaker 1: buck No life at all, he cried as he shot
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  Speaker 1: down his cuffs with a jerk and swung up and
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  Speaker 1: down the bar room of the Red Lion. He was
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  Speaker 1: dressed in a long fawn overcoat, reaching to his heels
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  Speaker 1: with two big yellow buttons at the waist behind in
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  Speaker 1: the most approved fashion of the horsey. He paused in
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  Speaker 1: his swaggering to survey the backs of his long white
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  Speaker 1: delicate hands, holding them side by side before him, as
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  Speaker 1: if to make sure they were the same size. He
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  Speaker 1: was letting the deacon see his ring, then pursing his
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  Speaker 1: chin down with a fastidious and critical regard, he picked
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  Speaker 1: a long fair hair off his left coat sleeve. He
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  Speaker 1: held it high, as he had seen them do on
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  Speaker 1: the stage at the Theater Royal, Sweet souvenir. He cried
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  Speaker 1: and kissed it most dear remembrance. The deacon fed on
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  Speaker 1: the sight. The richness of his satiric perception was too
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  Speaker 1: great to permit of speech. He could only gloat and
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  Speaker 1: be dumb. Waiting for Jack Gurley aired rattled again. He's
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  Speaker 1: off to college again, and we're driving in his father's
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  Speaker 1: trap to meet the express at skiing station. Wonder what's
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  Speaker 1: keeping the fellow. I like a man to be punctual
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  Speaker 1: business training, you see, Yes, by gad, two thousand parcels
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  Speaker 1: a week go out of our place, and all of
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  Speaker 1: him up to time. Ah, there he is, he added,
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  Speaker 1: as the harsh grind of wheels was heard on the
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  Speaker 1: gravel at the door. Thank God, we'll soon be in civilization.
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  Speaker 1: Young Gurley entered, great, coated and lordly through the two
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  Speaker 1: halves of that easy swinging door goods. He cried, just
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  Speaker 1: a minute aired till I get my flask filled, my
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  Speaker 1: weapons primed and ready aired. Ha had and slapped a
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  Speaker 1: breast pocket of his coat. John burroled a bright sovereign
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  Speaker 1: on the counter. One of twenty old Gurley had battered
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  Speaker 1: his brains to get together for the boy's expenses. The
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  Speaker 1: young fellow rattled a change in his trouser pocket like
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  Speaker 1: a master of millions. The Deacon and another idler or
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  Speaker 1: two gathered about the steps in the darkness to see
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  Speaker 1: that royal going off. Peter Riney's bunched up, little old
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  Speaker 1: figure could be seen on the front seat of the gig.
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  Speaker 1: Aird was already mounted behind the Mayor, a worthy successor
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  Speaker 1: to spanking. Tam pawed the gravel and fretted in impatience.
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  Speaker 1: Her sharp ears seemed pricked against the gloom worked to
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  Speaker 1: and fro. A widening cone of light shone out from
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  Speaker 1: the leftward lamp of the gig, full on a glistering
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  Speaker 1: laurel which Simpson had growing by his porch. Each smooth
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  Speaker 1: leaf of the green bush gave back a separate gleam,
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  Speaker 1: vivid to the eye in that pouring yellowness. Gourli stared
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  Speaker 1: at the bright evergreen and forget for a moment where
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  Speaker 1: he was. His lips parted, and as they saw in
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  Speaker 1: the light from the door, his look grew dreamy and
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  Speaker 1: far away. The truth was that all the impressions of
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  Speaker 1: a last day at home were bitten in on his
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  Speaker 1: brain as by acid, in the very middle of his
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  Speaker 1: swaggering gusto. That gusto was largely real true, for it
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  Speaker 1: seemed a fine thing to go splurging off to college
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  Speaker 1: in a gig, but it was still more largely assumed
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  Speaker 1: to combat the sorrow of departure. His heart was in
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  Speaker 1: his boots at the thought of going back to a
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  Speaker 1: cursed Edinburgh, to those lodgings, those dreary, damnable lodgings. Thus
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  Speaker 1: his nature was reduced to its real elements in the
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  Speaker 1: hour of leaving home. It was only for a swift
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  Speaker 1: moment he forgot to splurge. But for that moment the
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  Speaker 1: cloak of his swaggering dropped away, and he was his
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  Speaker 1: naked self, morbidly alive to the impressions of the world,
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  Speaker 1: afraid of life, clinging to the familiar and the known
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  Speaker 1: that was why he gazed with wistful eyes at that
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  Speaker 1: laurel clump, so vivid in the pouring rays, so vivid
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  Speaker 1: there it stood for all the dear country round, which
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  Speaker 1: was now hidden by the darkness. It centered his world
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  Speaker 1: among its leaves. It was a last picture of loved
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  Speaker 1: Barbie that was fastening on his mind. There would be
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  Speaker 1: fine gardens in Edinburgh, no doubt, But oh, that couthy
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  Speaker 1: laurel by the red lion door. It was his friend,
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  Speaker 1: he had known it always. The spell lasted but a moment,
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  Speaker 1: one of those moments searching a man's nature to its depths,
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  Speaker 1: yet flitting like a lonely shadow on the autumn wheat.
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  Speaker 1: But Aird was already fidgeting. Hurry up, Jack, he cried,
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  Speaker 1: we'll need to pelt if we mean to get the train.
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  Speaker 1: Gurley started in a moment. He had slipped from oneself
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  Speaker 1: to another, and was the blusterer once more right. He splurged, however,
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  Speaker 1: a blink till I like my cigar. He was not
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  Speaker 1: in the habit of smoking cigars, but he had bought
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  Speaker 1: a packet on purpose that he might like one. Before
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  Speaker 1: his admiring onlookers ere he went away. Nothing like cutting
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  Speaker 1: a dash. He was seen puffing for a moment with
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  Speaker 1: indrawn cheeks, his head to one side, the flame of
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  Speaker 1: the flickering vesta lighting up his face. His hat pushed
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  Speaker 1: back till it rested on his collar, his fair hair
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  Speaker 1: hanging down his brow. Then he sprang to the driving
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  Speaker 1: seat and gathered up the reins. Tat a deacon, see
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  Speaker 1: and behave yourself. He flung across his shoulder, and they
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  Speaker 1: were off with a bound impudance, said the outraged Deacon.
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  Speaker 1: Peter Riney was quite proud to have the honor of
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  Speaker 1: driving two such bucks to the station. It lent him
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  Speaker 1: a consequence He would be able to say when he
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  Speaker 1: came back that he had been a waway the young
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  Speaker 1: Mester for Peter, said Mester, and was laughed at by
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  Speaker 1: the Barbie wits, who knew that Mester was the proper English.
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  Speaker 1: The splurging twain rallied him and drew him out in talk,
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  Speaker 1: passed him their flasks at the brownies. Bray had him
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  Speaker 1: tea heeing at their nonsense. It was a full bloodied
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  Speaker 1: knight to the withered little man. That was how young
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  Speaker 1: Gurley left Barbie for what was to prove his last
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  Speaker 1: session at the university. All Gurley's swanky chaps had gone
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  Speaker 1: with the going of his trade. Only Peter Riney, the
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  Speaker 1: queer little oddity remained. There was a loyal simplicity in
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  Speaker 1: Peter which never allowed him to question the gurlies. He
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  Speaker 1: had been too long in their service to be of
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  Speaker 1: use to any other. While there was a hand's turn
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  Speaker 1: to be done about the house with the green shutters,
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  Speaker 1: he was glad to have the chance of doing it.
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  Speaker 1: His respect for his surly tyrant was as great as ever.
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  Speaker 1: He took his pittance of a wage and was thankful
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  Speaker 1: above all he worshiped young Gurley. To be in touch
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  Speaker 1: with a college bred man was a reflected glory. Even
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  Speaker 1: the escapades noised about the little town to his gleeful
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  Speaker 1: ignorance with the signs of a man of the world.
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  Speaker 1: Peter chuckled when he heard them. Talked of terrible clever Fallow,
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  Speaker 1: the young Mester, the bowed little man would say, sucking
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  Speaker 1: his pipe of an evening, terrible clever Fallow the young Mester,
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  Speaker 1: and Hardy too infernal Hardy loyal Peter believed it. But
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  Speaker 1: ere four months had gone Peter was discharged. It was
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  Speaker 1: in the day after Gurly sold Black Sally the Mare
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  Speaker 1: to get a little money to go on with. It
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  Speaker 1: was a bright spring day of enervating softness, a foesy day,
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  Speaker 1: a day when the pores of everything seemed opened. People's
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  Speaker 1: brains felt pulpy, and they sniffed as with winter's colds.
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  Speaker 1: Peter Riney was opening a pit of potatoes in the
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  Speaker 1: big garden, shoveling aside the foot deep mold and tearing
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  Speaker 1: off the inner covering of yellow straw, which seemed strange
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  Speaker 1: and unnatural somehow, when suddenly revealed in its glistening dryness
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  Speaker 1: beneath the moist dark earth, little crumbles of mold trickled
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  Speaker 1: down in among the flo flat and shining straws. In
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  Speaker 1: a tree near Peter, two pigeons were gurgling and ruckety cooing,
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  Speaker 1: mating for the coming year. He fell to sorting out
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  Speaker 1: the potatoes, throwing the bad ones on a heap aside,
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  Speaker 1: tatty wail in, as they call it in the North.
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  Speaker 1: The enervating softness was at work on Peter's head too,
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  Speaker 1: and from time to time as he wailed he wiped
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  Speaker 1: his nose in his sleeve. Gourlay watched him for a
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  Speaker 1: long time without speaking. Once or twice. He moistened his
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  Speaker 1: lips and cleared his throat, and frowned as one who
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  Speaker 1: would broach unpleasant news. It was not like him to hesitate.
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  Speaker 1: But the old man, incaseed insinility, was ill to disturb.
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  Speaker 1: He was intent on nothing but the work before him.
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  Speaker 1: It was mechanical and soothing, and occupied his whole mind. Gurlay,
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  Speaker 1: so often, the trampling brute, without knowing it, felt it
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  Speaker 1: brutal to wound the faithful old creature. Dreaming at his toil,
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  Speaker 1: he would have found it much easier to discharge a
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  Speaker 1: younger and a keener man. Stop Peter, he said, at last,
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  Speaker 1: I don't need you any more. Peter rose stiffly from
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  Speaker 1: his knees and shook the mold with a pitiful gesture
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  Speaker 1: from his hands. His mouth was fallen slack and showed
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  Speaker 1: a few yellow tusks. Ey, he asked vaguely. The thought
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  Speaker 1: that he must leave the gurlies could not penetrate his mind.
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  Speaker 1: I don't need you any more, said Gurley again, and
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  Speaker 1: met his eye steadily. I'm guy aled, said Peter, still
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  Speaker 1: shaking his hands with that pitiful gesture. But I only
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  Speaker 1: need a bite and a suck man. I'm willing to
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  Speaker 1: tack on a thing. It's not that, said Gurley sourly.
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  Speaker 1: It's not that, but I'm giving up the business. Peter
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  Speaker 1: said nothing, but gazed away down the garden, his sunken
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  Speaker 1: mouth forgetting to munch it straw, which dangled by his chin.
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  Speaker 1: I'm an old servant, he said last, and mind you,
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  Speaker 1: he flashed in pride. I'm a true an. Oh you're
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  Speaker 1: all that gurly grunted. You've been a good servant. It'll
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  Speaker 1: be the poor house, it's like, mused Peter. Man. Have
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  Speaker 1: you no thing for us to do? He asked, pleadingly.
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  Speaker 1: Gurley's jaw clamped nothing. Peter, he said, sullenly, nothing, and
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  Speaker 1: slipped some money into Peter's heedless palm. Peter stared stupidly
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  Speaker 1: down at the coins. He seemed dazed. I will, he said,
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  Speaker 1: I'll finish the tatties at any rate. No, no, Peter,
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  Speaker 1: and gurly gripped him by the shoulder as he turned
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  Speaker 1: back to his work. No, no, I have no right
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  Speaker 1: to keep you. Never mind about the money. You deserve.
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  Speaker 1: Something going so suddenly after sick a long service. It's
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  Speaker 1: just a bit present, To mind you, oh, to mind you.
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  Speaker 1: He broke suddenly and scowled across the garden. Some men
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  Speaker 1: went a feeling touches them expressed their emotion in tears,
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  Speaker 1: others by an angry scowl, hating themselves inwardly, perhaps for
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  Speaker 1: their weakness in being moved, hating too the occasion that
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  Speaker 1: has probed their weakness. It was because he felt parting
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  Speaker 1: with Peter so keenly that Gurley behaved more sullenly than usual.
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  Speaker 1: Peter had been with Gurley's father in his present master's boyhood,
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  Speaker 1: had always been faithful and submissive in his humble way,
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  Speaker 1: was nearer the grain merchant than any other man in Barbie.
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  Speaker 1: He was the only human being Gurley had ever deigned
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  Speaker 1: to joke with, and that in itself won him an affection. More,
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  Speaker 1: the going of Peter meant the going of everything. It
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  Speaker 1: cut Gurley to the quick. Therefore he scowled without a
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  Speaker 1: word of thanks for the money. Peter knocked a mold
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  Speaker 1: off his heavy boots, striking one against the other clumsily,
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  Speaker 1: and shuffled away across the bare soil. But when he
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  Speaker 1: had gone twenty yards he stopped and came back slowly, Goodbye, sir,
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  Speaker 1: he said with a rueful smile, and held out his hand.
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  Speaker 1: Gurley gripped it. Good Bye, Peter, good Bye, damn ye man,
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  Speaker 1: good bye. Peter wondered vaguely why he was sworn at,
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  Speaker 1: but he felt that it was not in anger. He
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  Speaker 1: still clung to his master's hand. I've been fifty year
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  Speaker 1: with the gurlies, said he, aye aye, and this it
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  Speaker 1: seems as they end o it. Oh, gang away, cried Curley,
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  Speaker 1: Gang away man, and Peter went away. Gurley went out
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  Speaker 1: to the big green gate where he had often stood
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  Speaker 1: in his pride, and watched his old servant going down
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  Speaker 1: the street. Peter was so bowed that the back of
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  Speaker 1: his velveteen coat was half way up his spine, and
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  Speaker 1: the bulging pockets at the corners were midway down his thighs.
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  Speaker 1: Gurley had seen the fact a thousand times, but it
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  Speaker 1: never gripped him. Before he stared till Peter disappeared round
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  Speaker 1: the bend of the brain. Aye aye, said he, aye, aye.
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  Speaker 1: There goes the last of them. It was a final
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  Speaker 1: run of ill luck that brought Gurley to this desperate pass,
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  Speaker 1: when everything seemed to go against him. He tried several
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  Speaker 1: speculations with a gambler's hope that they might do well
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  Speaker 1: and retrieve the situation. He abandoned a sensible direction of affairs,
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  Speaker 1: that is, and trusted entirely to chance, as men are
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  Speaker 1: apt to do. When despairing and chance betrayed him. He
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  Speaker 1: found himself of a sudden at the end of his resources.
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  Speaker 1: Through all his troubles, his one consolation was the fact
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  Speaker 1: that he had sent John to the university. That was
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  Speaker 1: something safe from the wreck at any rate. More and more,
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  Speaker 1: as his other supports fell away, Gurley attached himself to
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  Speaker 1: the future of his son. It became the sheet anchor
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  Speaker 1: of his hopes. If he had remained a prosperous man,
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  Speaker 1: John's success would have been merely incidental, something to disconsider
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  Speaker 1: in speech at least, however pleased he might have been
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  Speaker 1: at heart. But now it was the whole of life
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  Speaker 1: to him. For one thing, the son's success would justify
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  Speaker 1: the father's past and prevent it being quite useless. It
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  Speaker 1: would have produced a minister, a successful man, one of
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  Speaker 1: an esteemed profession. Again, that success would be a salve
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  Speaker 1: to Gurli's wounded pride. The girlies would show Barbie they
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  Speaker 1: could flurish syet in spite of their present income. Thus,
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  Speaker 1: in the collapse of his fortunes, the son grew all
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  Speaker 1: important in the father's eyes. Nor did his own poverty
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  Speaker 1: seem to him a just bar to his son's prosperity.
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  Speaker 1: I have put him through his arts, thought Gurley. Surely
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  Speaker 1: he can do the rest himself. Lots of young chaps,
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  Speaker 1: when they warstle through their arts, teach the sons of
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  Speaker 1: swells to get a little money to gang through divinity.
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  Speaker 1: My boy can surely do the like. And again, as
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  Speaker 1: Gourlie felt himself slipping under in the world of Barbie,
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  Speaker 1: his hopes turned to John in Edinburgh. If that boy
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  Speaker 1: would only hurry up and get through, to make a
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  Speaker 1: hame for the lassie and the old wife. End of
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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty two.