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026 - Chapter 26 · House with the Green Shutters

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Speaker 1: Chapter twenty six 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 Len Nicholson. The House
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Speaker 1: with the Green Shutters by George Douglas Brown, chapter twenty six.
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Speaker 1: Mother came the startled whisper. Mother, O woman, waken and
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Speaker 1: speak to me. No comforting answer came from the darkness
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Speaker 1: to tell of a human being close at hand. The girl,
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Speaker 1: intently listening, was alone with her fear. All was silent
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Speaker 1: in the room, and the terror deepened. Then the far
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Speaker 1: off sound in the house was heard once more, Mother, Mother,
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Speaker 1: what's that? What is it? Janet? Came a feebly plaining voice.
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Speaker 1: What's wrong with ye? Lassie? Janet and her mother were
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Speaker 1: sleeping in the big bedroom, Janet in the place that
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Speaker 1: had been her father's. He had been buried through the day.
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Speaker 1: The second day after his murder, Missus Gourley had shown
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Speaker 1: a feverish anxiety to get the corpse out the house
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Speaker 1: as soon as possible, and there had been nothing to
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Speaker 1: prevent it. Oh, said doctor Dandy to the gossips. It
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Speaker 1: would have killed any man to fall from such a
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Speaker 1: height on to the sharp edge of yon fender. No,
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Speaker 1: he was not quite dead when I got to him.
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Speaker 1: He opened his eyes in me once, a terrible look,
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Speaker 1: and then life went out of him with a great quiver.
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Speaker 1: Ere Janet could answer her mother. She was seized with
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Speaker 1: a racking cough, and her hoarse bark sounded hollow in
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Speaker 1: the silence. At last she sat up and gasped fearfully.
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Speaker 1: I thought, I thought I heard something moving. It would
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Speaker 1: be the wind, plain to her mother, it would just
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Speaker 1: be the wind. John's asleep. This struck an hour and
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Speaker 1: mare I sat by his bed for a lang while,
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Speaker 1: and he prigged and prayed for a doze o the whisky.
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Speaker 1: Ere he won away. He wouldn't let go my hand
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Speaker 1: till he slept, Poor fellow. There's an unco fear in him,
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Speaker 1: an unco fear. But try and for she soothed her daughter.
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Speaker 1: That would just be the wind he heard. Where's nae wind,
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Speaker 1: said Janet. The stair creaked. The two women clung to
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Speaker 1: each other, gripping tight fingers, and their hearts throbbed like
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Speaker 1: big separate beings. In their breasts. There was a rustle,
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Speaker 1: as of something coming. Then the door opened, and John
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Speaker 1: flitted to the bedside with a candle in his hand
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Speaker 1: above his night shirt. His bloodless face looked gray. Mother,
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Speaker 1: he panted, there's something in my room. What is it? John,
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Speaker 1: said his mother, in surprise and fear. Aye. I thought
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Speaker 1: it was himself. Oh mother, I'm feared. I'm feared. Oh mother,
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Speaker 1: I'm feared. He sang the words in a hysterical chant,
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Speaker 1: his voice rising at the end. The door of the
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Speaker 1: bedroom clicked. It was not a slamming sound, only the
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Speaker 1: door went too gently, as if someone closed it. John
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Speaker 1: dropped the candle from his shaking hand and was left
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Speaker 1: standing in the living darkness. Save me, he screamed, and
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Speaker 1: leaped into the bed, burrowing down between the women till
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Speaker 1: his head was covered by the bedclothes. He trembled so
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Speaker 1: violently that the bed shook beneath them. Let me bide
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Speaker 1: wa ye, he pleaded, with chattering jaws. Oh, let me
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Speaker 1: bide way. Ye, I've done a gang back to that
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Speaker 1: room by mysel again. His mother put her thin arm
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Speaker 1: round him. Yes, dear, she said, you may bide way.
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Speaker 1: Us Janet and me would not let anything harm you.
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Speaker 1: She placed her hand on his brow, caressingly. His hair
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Speaker 1: was damp with a cold sweat. He reeked of alcohol.
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Speaker 1: Someone went through the square playing a concertina. That sound
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Speaker 1: of the careless world came strangely in a on their
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Speaker 1: lonely tragedy. By contrast, the cheerful, silly noise out there
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Speaker 1: seemed to intensify their darkness and isolation. Here, occasional far
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Speaker 1: off shouts were heard from roisterers going home. Missus Gourley
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Speaker 1: lay staring at the darkness with intent eyes. What horror
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Speaker 1: might assail her, she did not know, but she was
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Speaker 1: ready to meet it for the sake of John. He
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Speaker 1: brought it on your cell, she breathed, once, as if
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Speaker 1: defying an unseen accuser. It was ours ere. He slept,
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Speaker 1: but at last, a heavy soft told her he had
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Speaker 1: found oblivion. He's one oar, she murmured, thankfully. At times
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Speaker 1: he muttered in his sleep, and at times Janet coughed
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Speaker 1: hoarsely at his ear. Janet did not host so loud, woman,
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Speaker 1: you'll waken your brother. Janet was silent. Then she choked,
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Speaker 1: trying to stifle another cough. Woman, said our mother, complainingly,
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Speaker 1: that's surely an unco host. Ye hey, ay, Janet, it's
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Speaker 1: a guy host. Next morning, Posty came clattering through the
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Speaker 1: paved yard in his tackety boots and handed in a
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Speaker 1: blue envelope at the back door with a business like air,
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Speaker 1: his ferrety eyes searching Missus Gourley's face as she took
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Speaker 1: the letter from his hand. But she betrayed nothing to
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Speaker 1: his curiosity, since she knew nothing of her husband's affairs,
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Speaker 1: and had no fear therefore of what the letter might portend.
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Speaker 1: She received the missive with a vacant unconcern. It was
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Speaker 1: addressed to John Gourley esquire. She turned it over in
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Speaker 1: a silly puzzlement, and Janet, she cried, what am I
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Speaker 1: to do with this? She shrank from opening a letter
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Speaker 1: addressed to her dead tyrant unless she had Janet by
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Speaker 1: her side. It was so many years since he had
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Speaker 1: allowed her to take an active interest in their common life.
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Speaker 1: Indeed he never had that. She was as helpless as
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Speaker 1: a child. It's to favor, said Janet. Shall I waken John? No,
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Speaker 1: poor fellow, let him sleep, said his mother. I stole
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Speaker 1: in to look at him now, and his face was
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Speaker 1: unco wan, lying down on the pillow. I'll open the letter, mysel, though,
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Speaker 1: as your father used to tell me, and never had
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Speaker 1: a heat for business. She broke the seal, and Janet,
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Speaker 1: looking over her shoulder, read aloud to her slower mind. Glasgow,
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Speaker 1: March the twelfth, Sir, we desire once more to call
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Speaker 1: your attention to the fact that the arrears of interest
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Speaker 1: on the mortgage of your house have not been paid.
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Speaker 1: Our client is unwilling to proceed to extremities, but unless
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Speaker 1: you make some arrangement within a week, you will be
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Speaker 1: forced to take the necessary steps to safeguard his interests.
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Speaker 1: Yours faithfully, Brodie, Gurney and Yarraby. Missus Gourli sank into
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Speaker 1: a chair and the letter slipped from her upturned palm,
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Speaker 1: lying slack upon her knee. Janet, she said, appealingly, what's
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Speaker 1: this that has come on us? As the house we
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Speaker 1: live in, the house with the green shutters not belong
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Speaker 1: to us any more? Tell me, Lassie, what does it mean?
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Speaker 1: I don't ken, whispered Janet with big eyes. Did father
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Speaker 1: never tell you of the bond? They never tell me
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Speaker 1: about anything? Cried Missus Gurley, with a sudden passion. I
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Speaker 1: was either one to be keep it in the dark,
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Speaker 1: to be keep it in the dark, and sore hadden't doone,
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Speaker 1: or we left destitute Janet. And as was I say,
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Speaker 1: mucklethochto and me too, that's come of decent folk, and
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Speaker 1: brought him a guy pickle bob bees am I to
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Speaker 1: be in the parish in my old age? Oh, my father,
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Speaker 1: my father. Her mind flashed back to the ducose and
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Speaker 1: well to do father, who had been but a blurred
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Speaker 1: thought to her for twenty years. That his daughter should
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Speaker 1: come to a pass like this was enough to make
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Speaker 1: him turn in his grave. Janet was astonished by her
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Speaker 1: sudden passion and feebleness. Even the murder of her husband
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Speaker 1: had been met by her weak mind with a day's resigne.
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Speaker 1: For her natural horror, the deed was swallowed by her
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Speaker 1: anxiety to shield the murderer, and she experienced a vague
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Speaker 1: relief felt but not considered, at being freed from the
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Speaker 1: incubus of Gourley's tyranny. It seemed too, as if she
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Speaker 1: was incapable of feeling anything poignantly deadened now by these
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Speaker 1: quick calamities, but that she that ten shilling Land's daughter
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Speaker 1: should come to be an object of common charity touched
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Speaker 1: some hidden nerve of pride and made her writhe in agony,
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Speaker 1: It may not be so bad. Janet tried to comfort her.
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Speaker 1: Waken John, said her mother feverishly. Waken John, and we'll
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Speaker 1: gang through his father's desk. There may be something good
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Speaker 1: among his papers. There may be something good, she gabbled nervously. Yes,
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Speaker 1: there may be something good in a desk. In a desk,
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Speaker 1: There may be something good in a desk. John staggered
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Speaker 1: into the kitchen. Five minutes later, half way to the
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Speaker 1: table where his mother sat, he reeled and fell over
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Speaker 1: on a chair, where he lay with an ashen face,
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Speaker 1: his eyes mere slits in his head, the upturned white
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Speaker 1: showing through. They brought him whisky, and he drank and
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Speaker 1: was recovered. And then they went through to the parlor
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Speaker 1: and opened a great desk that stood in the corner.
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Speaker 1: It was the first time they had ever dared to
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Speaker 1: raise its lid. John took up a letter lying loosely
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Speaker 1: on the top of the other papers, and after a
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Speaker 1: hasty glance, this settles it, said he. It was the
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Speaker 1: note from Gurley's banker, warning him that his account was overdrawn.
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Speaker 1: God help us, cried missus Gourley and Janet began to whimper.
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Speaker 1: John slipped out of the room. He was still in
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Speaker 1: his stocking feet, and the women, dazed by this sudden
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Speaker 1: and appalling news, were scarcely aware of his departure. He
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Speaker 1: passed through the kitchen and stood on the step of
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Speaker 1: the back door, looking out on the quiet, little paved yard.
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Speaker 1: Everything there was remarkably still and bright. It was an
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Speaker 1: early spring that year, and the hot March sun beat
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Speaker 1: down in him, paining his bleared and puffy eyes. The
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Speaker 1: contrast between his own lump of a body drink days
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Speaker 1: dull throbbing and the warm, bright day came in on
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Speaker 1: him with a sudden sinking of the heart, a sense
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Speaker 1: of degradation and personal abasement. He realized, however, obscurely, that
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Speaker 1: he was an eye sore in nature, a blotch on
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Speaker 1: the surface of the world, and a fence to the sweet,
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Speaker 1: breathing heavens. And that bright silence was so strange and
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Speaker 1: still he could have screamed to escape it. The slow
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Speaker 1: ticking of the kitchen clock seemed to beat upon his
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Speaker 1: raw brain. Damn the thing, Why didn't it stop with
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Speaker 1: its monotonous tick tack, tick tack, tick tack. He could
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Speaker 1: feel it inside his head, where it seemed to strike
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Speaker 1: innumerable little blows on a strained cord. It was bent
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Speaker 1: and snapping. He tipped towed back to the kitchen, and
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Speaker 1: noiseless feet and cocking his ear to listen, he heard
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Speaker 1: the murmur of women's voices in the parlor. There was
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Speaker 1: a look of slyness and cunning in his face, and
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Speaker 1: his eyes glittered with desire. The whiskey was still on
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Speaker 1: the table. He seized the bottle greedily, and tilting it up,
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Speaker 1: let the raw liquid gurgle into him like cooling water.
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Speaker 1: It seemed to flood his parched being with a new vitality. Oh,
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Speaker 1: I doubt will be guy ill off. He heard his
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Speaker 1: mother whine, and at that reminder of her nearness, he
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Speaker 1: checked the great, satisfied breath he had begun to blow.
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Speaker 1: He set the bottle on the table, bringing the glass
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Speaker 1: noiselessly down upon the wood with a tense, unnatural precision,
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Speaker 1: possible only to drink steady nerves, a steadiness like the
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Speaker 1: humming tops whirled to its fastest. Then he sped silently
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Speaker 1: through the courtyard and locked himself into the stable, chuckling
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Speaker 1: in drunken triumph. As he turned the key, he pitched
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Speaker 1: forward on a litter of dirty straw, and in a moment,
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Speaker 1: sleep came over his mind in a huge wave of darkness.
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Speaker 1: An hour later he woke from a terrible dream, flinging
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Speaker 1: his arms up to ward off a face that had
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Speaker 1: been pressing on his own, where the eyes that had
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Speaker 1: burned his brain still glaring above him. He looked about
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Speaker 1: him in drunken wonder. From a sky window, a shaft
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Speaker 1: of golden light came slanting into the loose box living
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Speaker 1: with yellow moats. In the dimness, the world seemed dead.
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Speaker 1: He was alone in the silent building, and from without
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Speaker 1: there was no sound. Then a panic terror flashed in
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Speaker 1: his mind that those eyes had actually been here, and
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Speaker 1: were here with him still where he was locked up
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Speaker 1: with them alone. He strained his eyeballs in a horrified
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Speaker 1: stare at vacancy. Then he shut them in terror, for
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Speaker 1: why did he look? If he looked, the eyes might
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Speaker 1: burn on him. Out of nothingness. The innocent air had
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Speaker 1: become his enemy, pregnant with unseen terrors to glare at him.
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Speaker 1: To breathe. It stifled him. Each draft of it was
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Speaker 1: full of menace. With a shrill cry, he dashed at
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Speaker 1: the door and felt in the clutch of his ghostly
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Speaker 1: enemy when he failed to open it at once, breaking
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Speaker 1: his nails in the baffling lock. He mowed and chattered,
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Speaker 1: and stamped and tore at the lock for straight and fear.
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Speaker 1: At last he was free. He broke into the kitchen,
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Speaker 1: where his mother sat weeping. She raised her eyes to
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Speaker 1: see a disheveled thing with bits of straw scattered on
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Speaker 1: his clothes and hair. Mother, he screamed, mother, and stopped suddenly,
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Speaker 1: his starting eyes seeming to follow something in the room.
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Speaker 1: What are ye glaring at, John? She wailed, They damned een,
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Speaker 1: he said, slowly, they're burning my soul. Look, look, he cried,
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Speaker 1: clutching her thin wrist. See there there coming round by
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Speaker 1: the dresser. Ah, he screamed in hoarse execration. Would ye then,
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Speaker 1: And he hurled a great jug from the table at
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Speaker 1: the pursuing unseen The jug struck the yellow face of
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Speaker 1: the clock, and the glass jangled on the floor. Missus
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Speaker 1: Gurley raised her arms like a gaunt Sybil, and spoke
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Speaker 1: to her maker quietly, as if he were a man.
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Speaker 1: Before her in the room. Ruin and murder, she said, slowly,
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Speaker 1: in madness and death at my nipple like a child.
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Speaker 1: When will ye be satisfied? Drunk and Webster's wife spread
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Speaker 1: the news, of course, and that night it went humming
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Speaker 1: through the town that young Gurley had the horrors and
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Speaker 1: was throwing tumblers at his mother. Poor body, said the baker,
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Speaker 1: in the long drawn tones of an infinite compassion. Poor body, Aye,
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Speaker 1: said Totle dryly. You'll be wanting to put an end
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Speaker 1: to hard next after killing his favor, killing his failure,
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Speaker 1: said the baker, with a quick look. What do you
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Speaker 1: mean mean? Oh, I just mean what the doctor says.
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Speaker 1: Gurley was that mad at the drunken young swine that
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Speaker 1: he got the plexies, fell half the ladder and felled himself. Deed,
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Speaker 1: that's what I mean. No less, said Toddle nettled at
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Speaker 1: the sharp question. Aye, man, that account's fort, said tam Welly.
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Speaker 1: It did seem queer girlies dying, the very nick the
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Speaker 1: prodigal cam Hen. He was a heavy man too. He
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Speaker 1: would come down with an infernal thud. It seems uncanny,
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Speaker 1: though it seems uncanny. Strange murmured another, and they looked
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Speaker 1: at each other in silent wonder. But will this be true? Thing?
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Speaker 1: Ye said Brodie about the horrors. I mean, did he
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Speaker 1: throw the tumbler at his mother? Lord, it's true, said
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Speaker 1: Sandy Toddle. I get into the kitchen on purpose to
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Speaker 1: make sure of the matter with my own eyes. I
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Speaker 1: let on, I wanted to borrow Old Gurley's keyhole. Sow.
15:47
Speaker 1: I can tell ye he had oh his orders, his
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Speaker 1: tool chest, the finest I ever saw in my life.
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Speaker 1: I mean to bid for some of yawn when the
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Speaker 1: route comes well. As I was saying, I let on,
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Speaker 1: I wanted that we saw, and went into the kitchen.
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Speaker 1: One end's errand the tumbler. Johnny Coe says it was
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Speaker 1: a bottle, however, but I know I've eyes do that
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Speaker 1: A speared Webster's wife, and I think my details are correct.
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Speaker 1: The tumbler went flying past his mother and smashed the
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Speaker 1: face of the eight day. It happened about the mid
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Speaker 1: hour of the day. The clock had stopped it, I
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Speaker 1: observed at three and a half minutes to the twelve. Hey,
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Speaker 1: cried the deacon. It's a pity old gourly Worney alive
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Speaker 1: this day, faith, I cried Wiley. He would have sorted him.
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Speaker 1: He would have trimmed the young ruffian, no doubt, said
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Speaker 1: the deacon gravely. No doubt. But it was scarcely that
16:42
Speaker 1: I was thinking of. Yeah, he grinned. This would have
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Speaker 1: been a slap in the faith till him. Wiley looked
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Speaker 1: at him for a while, with a white scunner in
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Speaker 1: his face. He wore the musing and disgusted look of
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Speaker 1: a man whose wounded mind retires within itself to brood
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Speaker 1: over a sight of unnatural cruelty. The deacon grew uncomfortable
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Speaker 1: beneath his sideward estimating eye. Deacon Allardice, your heart's black rotten,
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Speaker 1: he said. At last. The deacon blinked and was silent.
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Speaker 1: Tam had summed him up. There was no appeal. John Dear,
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Speaker 1: said his mother. That evening we'll take the big sofa
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Speaker 1: into her bedroom and make up a grand bed for ye,
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Speaker 1: and then we'll be company to one another. Hey, dear,
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Speaker 1: she pleaded, wouldn't that be a fine way? When you
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Speaker 1: have Janet and me beside you, you want to be
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Speaker 1: feared of anything coming near you? You should go to
17:37
Speaker 1: bed early, dear, as sleep would restore your mind. I
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Speaker 1: don't mean to go to bed, he said slowly. He
17:45
Speaker 1: spoke staringly, with the same fixity in his voice and gaze.
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Speaker 1: There was neither rise nor fall in his voice, only
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Speaker 1: a dull level of intensity. You don't mean to go
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Speaker 1: to bed. Joh, what for, dear man? A sleep would
17:59
Speaker 1: cam your mind? For ye? Na, he smiled and shook
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Speaker 1: his head like a cunning madman who had detected her
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Speaker 1: trying to get round him. Naw, no sleep for me,
18:12
Speaker 1: No sleep for me. I'm feared I would see the
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Speaker 1: red en, he whispered, the red een coming at me
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Speaker 1: out of the darkness. The darkness. He nodded, staring at
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Speaker 1: her and breathing the word, the darkness, the darkness. The
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Speaker 1: darkness is the worst, mother, he added in his natural voice,
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Speaker 1: leaning forward, as if he explained some simple curious thing
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Speaker 1: of every day. The darkness is the worst. You know.
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Speaker 1: I've seen them in the broad lickd but in the lobby,
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Speaker 1: he whispered hoarsely, in the lobby when it was dark.
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Speaker 1: In the lobby, they were terrible, just twayen and the
18:47
Speaker 1: eye keep thegither though their eye moving. That's why I
18:50
Speaker 1: cannot pin them. And it's because I ken their eye,
18:53
Speaker 1: watching me, watching me, watching me, that I get so feared.
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Speaker 1: They're red. He nodded and whispered, they're red, they're red.
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Speaker 1: His mouth gaped in horror, and he stared as if
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Speaker 1: he saw them. Now. He had boasted long ago of
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Speaker 1: being able to see things inside his head in his
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Speaker 1: drunken hysteria. He was to see them always. The vision
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Speaker 1: he beheld against the darkness of his mind projected itself
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Speaker 1: and glared at him. He was pursued by a specter
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Speaker 1: in his own brain, and for that reason there was
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Speaker 1: no escape. Wherever he went, it followed him. Oh, man,
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Speaker 1: John wailed his mother. What are ye feared for your
19:30
Speaker 1: fathers een? For he wouldn'ta persecute his boy? Would? Do
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Speaker 1: you know? He said, slowly, you can yer sell it.
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Speaker 1: He never liked me, and nobody could stand his glower.
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Speaker 1: Oh he was a terrible man, my favor. You could
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Speaker 1: feel a passion in him. When he stood still, he
19:48
Speaker 1: could throw him sell at ye without moving, and his
19:50
Speaker 1: throwing him sell at me. Fore beyond the grave, Missus
19:55
Speaker 1: Gourley beat her desperate hands. Her feeble remonstrance was a
19:59
Speaker 1: snowflake on a hill to the dull intensity of this conviction.
20:03
Speaker 1: So colossal was it that it gripped herself, and she
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Speaker 1: glanced dreadfully across her shoulder. But in spite of her fears,
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Speaker 1: she must plead with him to save Johnny Dear, she
20:15
Speaker 1: wept passionately. There's no een. It's just a drink, garsye think,
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Speaker 1: Say no, he said, Dolly. The drink's my refuge. It's
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Speaker 1: a kind thing. Drink, It helps a body. But John,
20:28
Speaker 1: nobody believes in these things nowadays. It's just fancying you.
20:32
Speaker 1: I wonder at a college bred man like you giving
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Speaker 1: heed to a ween nonsense. You ken yourself. It was
20:39
Speaker 1: a byword in the place that he would haunt the
20:42
Speaker 1: house with the green shutters. God help me, cried missus Gourley.
20:46
Speaker 1: What am I to do? She piled up a great
20:49
Speaker 1: fire in the parlor, and the three poor creatures gathered
20:53
Speaker 1: round it for the night. They were afraid to sit
20:57
Speaker 1: in the kitchen of an evening, for even the silent
20:59
Speaker 1: furniture seemed to talk of the murder it had witnessed.
21:03
Speaker 1: John was on a carpet stool by his mother's feet,
21:06
Speaker 1: his head resting on her knee. They heard the rattle
21:09
Speaker 1: of Wilson's brake as it swung over the town head
21:12
Speaker 1: from octor wheeze and the laughter of its jovial crew.
21:16
Speaker 1: They heard a town clock chiming the lonesome passage of
21:19
Speaker 1: the hours. A dog was barking in the street. Gradually
21:24
Speaker 1: all other sounds died away. Mother said, John, lay your
21:28
Speaker 1: hand along my shoulder, touching my neck. I want to
21:32
Speaker 1: be sure that you're near me. I'll do that, my bairn,
21:35
Speaker 1: said his mother, and soon he was asleep. Janet was
21:39
Speaker 1: reading a novel. The children had their mother's silly gift,
21:43
Speaker 1: a gift of the weak minded, of forgetting their own
21:46
Speaker 1: duties and their own sorrows in a vacant interest which
21:49
Speaker 1: they found in books. She had wrapped a piece of
21:52
Speaker 1: coarse red flannel round her head to comfort a swollen jaw,
21:56
Speaker 1: and her face appeared from within like a tallowy oval.
22:00
Speaker 1: I didn't I get that story finished, said missus Gourley, vacantly,
22:04
Speaker 1: staring at the fire, open mouthed her much strings dangling.
22:08
Speaker 1: It was the remark of a stricken mind that speaks
22:10
Speaker 1: vacantly of anything. Does Herbert Montgomery marry Sir James's niece,
22:16
Speaker 1: no said Janet. He's killed at the war. It's a guy.
22:19
Speaker 1: Pity of him, isn't it. Oh? What's that? It was
22:24
Speaker 1: John talking in his sleep. I have killed my faither,
22:28
Speaker 1: he said, slowly, pausing long between every phrase. I have
22:32
Speaker 1: killed my faither. I have killed my faither. And he's
22:37
Speaker 1: following me. He's following me, he's following me. It was
22:46
Speaker 1: the voice of a thing, not a man. It swelled
22:49
Speaker 1: and dwelt on the follow as if the horror of
22:52
Speaker 1: the pursuit made it moan, he's following me, he's following me.
22:59
Speaker 1: He's following me. A face like a dark mist and
23:04
Speaker 1: een like hell, oh, there following me. They're following me,
23:09
Speaker 1: They're following me. His voice seemed to come from an
23:13
Speaker 1: infinite distance. It was like a lost soul moaning in
23:17
Speaker 1: a solitude. The dog was barking in the street. A
23:21
Speaker 1: cry of the night came from far away. That voice
23:25
Speaker 1: was as if a corpse opened its lips and told
23:28
Speaker 1: of horrors beyond the grave. It brought the other world
23:31
Speaker 1: into the homely room and made it all demonaic. The
23:35
Speaker 1: woman felt the presence of the unknown. It was their
23:38
Speaker 1: own flesh and blood that spoke the words, and by
23:41
Speaker 1: their own quiet hearth, but hell seemed with them in
23:45
Speaker 1: the room. Missus Gurley drew back from John's head on
23:49
Speaker 1: her lap, as from something monstrous and unholy. But he
23:52
Speaker 1: moaned in deprivation, craving her support, and she edged nearer
23:56
Speaker 1: to supply his need. Possessed with a devil or no,
24:00
Speaker 1: he was her son, mother gasped Janet suddenly, the white
24:05
Speaker 1: circles of her eyes staring from the red flannel, her
24:07
Speaker 1: voice hoarse with a new fear. Mother, suppose suppose he
24:13
Speaker 1: said that before anybody else. Don't mention it, cried her mother,
24:17
Speaker 1: with sudden passion. How dorrie, how dor ye, my god.
24:21
Speaker 1: She broke down and wept. They would hang him, so
24:25
Speaker 1: they would, They would hang my boy. They would take
24:28
Speaker 1: and hang my boy. They stared at each other wildly.
24:33
Speaker 1: John slept his head twisted over on his mother's knee,
24:36
Speaker 1: his eyes sunken, his mouth wide open. Mother Janet whispered,
24:41
Speaker 1: you must send him away. I have only three pounds
24:44
Speaker 1: in the world, said missus Gourley, and she put her
24:47
Speaker 1: hand to her breast where it was, but winced, as
24:50
Speaker 1: if a pain had bitten her. Send him away, wait,
24:53
Speaker 1: said Janet. The furniture, may bring something, and you and
24:57
Speaker 1: me can I throw In the morning, Girly brought two
25:01
Speaker 1: greasy notes to the table and placed them in her
25:03
Speaker 1: son's slack hand. He was saner now he had slept
25:07
Speaker 1: off his drunken madness through the night. John, she said,
25:11
Speaker 1: in pitiful appeal, you manna stay here, laddie. You'll gee
25:15
Speaker 1: up the drink when you're away, will ye know? And
25:18
Speaker 1: then they e'en ye're safe feared of will no trouble
25:21
Speaker 1: ye any mayor gang to Glasgow and see the lawyer
25:24
Speaker 1: folk about the bond. And John, dear, she pleaded, if
25:28
Speaker 1: there's nothing left for us, you'll try to work for
25:31
Speaker 1: Janet and me. Will ye know? You've a grand education
25:34
Speaker 1: and you'll surely get a place as a teacher or something.
25:38
Speaker 1: I'm sure you would make a grand teacher. You wouldn't
25:41
Speaker 1: like to think of your mother trailing every week to
25:43
Speaker 1: the like of Wilson for an homus, streaking out her
25:46
Speaker 1: old hand for charity. The folk would stand in their
25:50
Speaker 1: doors to look at me, man, They would that they
25:53
Speaker 1: would cry ben to each other to come out and
25:56
Speaker 1: see Gurley's wife gone slinkin' down the bray. Don't a
26:00
Speaker 1: bray it would be, she repeated, don a bray it
26:02
Speaker 1: would be, and her mind drifted away on the sorrowful
26:06
Speaker 1: future which her fear made so vivid and real. It
26:10
Speaker 1: was only John's going that roused her. Thomas Brody, glowering
26:15
Speaker 1: abroad from a shop door for stooned in boots, his
26:18
Speaker 1: leather apron in front and his thumbs in the armholes
26:21
Speaker 1: of his waistcoat as befitted an important man, saw young
26:25
Speaker 1: Girlie pass the cross with his bag in his hand
26:28
Speaker 1: and dwindle up the road to the station where's he
26:32
Speaker 1: often now? He muttered, there's something at the bottom of this,
26:35
Speaker 1: if a body could find it out. End of chapter
26:42
Speaker 1: twenty six.