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019 - Chapter 19 · House with the Green Shutters

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  Speaker 1: Chapter nineteen of the House with the Green Shutters. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Recording by Lenn Nicholson. The House with
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  Speaker 1: the Green Shutters by George Douglas Brown, chapter nineteen. There
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  Speaker 1: were only four other passengers dropped by the eleven o'clock
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  Speaker 1: Express at Skiing Station, and as it happened, young Girlie
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  Speaker 1: knew them all. They were petty merchants of the neighborhood,
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  Speaker 1: whom he had often seen about Barbie. The sight of
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  Speaker 1: their remembered faces as he stepped on to the platform
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  Speaker 1: gave him a delightful sense that he was nearing home.
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  Speaker 1: He had passed from the careless world, where he was
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  Speaker 1: nobody at all, to the familiar circle, where he was
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  Speaker 1: a somebody, a mentioned man, and the one of a
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  Speaker 1: mentioned man, young mister Gurley. He had a feeling of
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  Speaker 1: superiority to the others, too, because they were mere local journeyers.
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  Speaker 1: While he had traveled all the way from Mighty Edinburgh
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  Speaker 1: by the late Express. He was returning from the outer world,
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  Speaker 1: while they were bits of bodies who had only been
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  Speaker 1: to fakers. As Edinburgh was to fakers, so was he
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  Speaker 1: to them. Round him was the halo of distance and
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  Speaker 1: the mystery of night traveling. He felt big. Have you
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  Speaker 1: a match, Robert, he asked, very graciously of Robin Gregg,
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  Speaker 1: one of the porters whom he knew. Getting his match,
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  Speaker 1: he lit a cigarette, and when it was lit, after
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  Speaker 1: one quick puff, turned it swiftly round to examine its
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  Speaker 1: burning end. Rotten, he said, and threw it away to
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  Speaker 1: light another. The porters were watching him, and he knew it.
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  Speaker 1: When the station master appeared yawning from his office as
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  Speaker 1: he was passing through the gate, and asked who it was,
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  Speaker 1: it flattered his vanity to hear Robin's answer that it
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  Speaker 1: was young mister Gurley of Barbie, just back from the university.
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  Speaker 1: He had been so hot for home that he had
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  Speaker 1: left Edinburgh at twilight, too eager to wait for the morrow.
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  Speaker 1: There was no train for Barbie at this hour of
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  Speaker 1: the night, and of course there was no gig to
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  Speaker 1: meet him, even if he had sent word of his coming.
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  Speaker 1: There's no need for traveling so late. Old Gurley would
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  Speaker 1: have growled, let him shank it. We're in no hurry
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  Speaker 1: to have him home. He set off briskly, eager to
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  Speaker 1: see his mother and tell her he had won the rayburn.
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  Speaker 1: The consciousness of his achievement danced in his blood and
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  Speaker 1: made the road light to his feet. His thoughts were
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  Speaker 1: not with the country round him, but entirely in the
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  Speaker 1: moment of his entrance, when he should proclaim his triumph
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  Speaker 1: with proud and joyment of his mother's pride. His fancy
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  Speaker 1: swept to his journey's end and took his body after,
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  Speaker 1: so that the long way was as nothing annihilate by
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  Speaker 1: the leap forward of his mind. He was too vain,
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  Speaker 1: too full of himself and his petty triumph, to have
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  Speaker 1: room for the beauty of the night. The sky was
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  Speaker 1: one sea of lit cloud, foamy, ridge upon ridge over
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  Speaker 1: all the heavens, and each wave was brimming with its
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  Speaker 1: own whiteness, seeming unborrowed of the moon through one peep hole,
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  Speaker 1: and only one shone a distant star, a faint white
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  Speaker 1: speck far away, dimmed by the nearer splendors of the sky.
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  Speaker 1: Sometimes the thinning edge of a cloud brightened in spume,
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  Speaker 1: and round the brightness came a circle of umber, making
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  Speaker 1: a window of fantastic glory for Dian the Queen. There
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  Speaker 1: her white vision peeped for a moment in the world,
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  Speaker 1: and the next she was hid behind a fleecy veil,
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  Speaker 1: couching the heavens. Gourley was alone with the wonder of
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  Speaker 1: the night. The light from above him was softened in
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  Speaker 1: a myriad boughs, no longer mere light and cold, but
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  Speaker 1: a spirit indwelling as their soul. And they were bows,
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  Speaker 1: no longer but a woven dream. He walked beneath a
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  Speaker 1: shadowed glory, but he was dead to it all. Only
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  Speaker 1: one fact possessed him. He had won the Rayburn. He
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  Speaker 1: had won the Rayburn. The road flew beneath him, almost
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  Speaker 1: before he was aware, the mean, gray streets of Barbie
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  Speaker 1: had clipped him round. He stopped panting from the hurry
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  Speaker 1: of his walk and looked at the quiet houses, all
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  Speaker 1: still among the gloom. He realized with a sudden pride
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  Speaker 1: that he alone was in conscious possession of the town.
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  Speaker 1: Barbie existed to no other mind. All the others were asleep.
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  Speaker 1: While he had a thrilling consciousness of them and of
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  Speaker 1: their future attitude to him. They did not know that
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  Speaker 1: he the returning great One. Was present in in their
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  Speaker 1: midst They all knew of the Rayburn, however, and ere
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  Speaker 1: long they would know that it was his. He was
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  Speaker 1: glad to hug his proud secret in presence of the
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  Speaker 1: sleeping town of which he would be the talk tomorrow.
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  Speaker 1: How he would surprise them. He stood for a little,
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  Speaker 1: gloating in his own sensations. Then a desire to get
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  Speaker 1: home tugged him, and he scurried up the long bray.
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  Speaker 1: He stole round the corner of the house with the
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  Speaker 1: green shutters. Roger, the collie, came at him with a bow. Wow, Wow, Roger.
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  Speaker 1: He whispered and cuddled him, and the old loyalist fond
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  Speaker 1: on him and licked his hand. The very smell of
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  Speaker 1: the dog was coothy in his nose. The window of
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  Speaker 1: a bedroom went up with a crash. Now, then, who
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  Speaker 1: the devil are you? Came the voice of old Girlie.
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  Speaker 1: It's me, father said John, Oh, it's you, is it?
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  Speaker 1: This is a fine time of night to come home.
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  Speaker 1: Faither I have I have won the Rayburn. It'll keep
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  Speaker 1: my money, it'll keep. And the windows slammed. Next moment
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  Speaker 1: it was up. Did young Wilson get anything? Came the
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  Speaker 1: eager cry, not him, said John, fine man, damn sir
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  Speaker 1: im proud o ye. John went round the corner, treading
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  Speaker 1: on air. For the first time in his life. His
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  Speaker 1: father had praised him. He peeped through a kink at
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  Speaker 1: the side of the kitchen blind, where its descent was
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  Speaker 1: arrested by a flower pot in the corner of the
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  Speaker 1: window sill. As he had expected, though it was long
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  Speaker 1: past midnight, his mother was not yet in bed. She
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  Speaker 1: was folding a white cloth over her bosom and about
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  Speaker 1: her on the backs of chairs. There were other such
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  Speaker 1: cloths drying by the fire. He watched her curiously. Once
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  Speaker 1: he seemed to hear a whimpering moan. When she buttoned
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  Speaker 1: her dress above the cloth. She gazed sadly at the
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  Speaker 1: dying embers, the look of one who has gained short
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  Speaker 1: respite from a task of painful tendence on the body.
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  Speaker 1: It is conscious that the task and the pain are endless,
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  Speaker 1: and will have to be endured tomorrow and tomorrow till
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  Speaker 1: she dies. It was the fixed gaze of utter weariness
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  Speaker 1: and apathy. A sudden alarm for his mother made John
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  Speaker 1: cry her name. She flew to the door, and in
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  Speaker 1: a moment had him in her arms. He told his
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  Speaker 1: news and basked in her adoration. She came close to
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  Speaker 1: him and John, she said, in a smiling whisper. Big
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  Speaker 1: eyed John, she breathed, would you like a dram? It
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  Speaker 1: was as if she was propounding a roguish plan in
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  Speaker 1: some dear conspiracy. He laughed. Well, he said, seeing we
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  Speaker 1: have won the raburn, you and I I think we might.
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  Speaker 1: He heard her fumbling in the distant pantry. He smiled
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  Speaker 1: to himself as he listened to the clinking glass, and
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  Speaker 1: by jove said he A mother's a fine thing. Where's Janet?
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  Speaker 1: He asked. When she returned, he wanted another worshiper. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: she gangs to bed the moment. It's dark, His mother complained,
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  Speaker 1: like one aggrieved. She's always saying that she's ill. I've
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  Speaker 1: thought when she grew up that she might be a
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  Speaker 1: wee help, but she's no use at all. And I'm sure,
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  Speaker 1: if all is kenned, I have more to complain o
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  Speaker 1: than she has. It tweel eye, she said, and stared
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  Speaker 1: at the embers. It rarely occurs to young folks who
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  Speaker 1: have never left her homes that their parents may be
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  Speaker 1: dying soon from infancy, they have known them as established
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  Speaker 1: facts of nature, like the streams and hills. They expect
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  Speaker 1: them to remain. But the young who have been away
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  Speaker 1: for six months are often struck by a tragic difference
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  Speaker 1: in their elders. And returning home to young Girleigh, there
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  Speaker 1: was a curious difference in his mother. She was almost
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  Speaker 1: beautiful to night. Her blue eyes were large and glittering,
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  Speaker 1: her ears waxen and delicate, and her brown hair swept
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  Speaker 1: low on her blue veined temples. Above and below her lips,
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  Speaker 1: there was a narrow margin of the purest white mother.
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  Speaker 1: He said anxiously, you're not ill, are ye? What do
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  Speaker 1: you need so many wee clouts? For? She gasped and started,
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  Speaker 1: They're just a wean clouts I was sorting out, she faltered. No, no, dear,
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  Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong WI me. There's one sticking in your blouse,
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  Speaker 1: said he, and pointed to her slack breast. She glanced
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  Speaker 1: nervously down and pushed it further in. I dare say
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  Speaker 1: I put it there when I was not thinking, she explained,
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  Speaker 1: But she eyed him furtively to see if he were
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  Speaker 1: still looking. End of Chapter nineteen