George Douglas Brown

The House with the Green Shutters George Douglas Brown

The clock across the Square struck the hour, eight soft, slow strokes, that melted away in the beauty of the morning. Five minutes passed. Gourlay turned his head to listen, but no further sound came from the yard. He walked to the green gate, his slippers making no noise. "Are ye sleeping, my pretty men?" he said softly.... "Eih?" The "Eih" leapt like a sword, with a slicing sharpness in its tone that made it a sinister contrast to the first sweet question to his "pretty men." "Eih?" he said again, and stared with open mouth and fierce, dark eyes. "Hurry up, Peter," whispered the gaffer, "hurry up, for God sake. He has the black glower in his een." "Ready, sir; ready now!" cried Peter Riney, running out to open the other half of the gate. Peter was a wizened little man, with a sandy fringe of beard beneath his chin, a wart on the end of his long, slanting-out nose, light blue eyes, and bushy eyebrows of a reddish gray.