Brodie at last raised his head,, becoming aware that the interview had turned, though he knew not how, into the channel which he desired it to take.
"I've closed my business, Sir John!" he began. "Ye know as well as I do how I've been used by these" he swallowed and restrained himself "by that company that sneaked into the town and settled beside me like a thief in the night. They've used every low trick they could, stolen my manager from me; they've undercut me, sold rotten trash instead of honest goods, they've they've sucked the very blood
out o' me."
As memory stirred under his own words, his eye filled with self-sympathy and his chest heaved; he stretched out his arm demonstratively.
But Latta was somehow not impressed and raising his hand deprecatingly to stop the other, he remarked:
"And what did you do, Brodie, to combat these tactics? Did you branch out into new directions or or exert yourself more agreeably towards your customers?"
Brodie stared at him with a stupid, mulish obstinacy. "I went my own way," he exclaimed stubbornly, "the way I've always gone."
"I see," said Latta slowly.
"I fought them!" exclaimed Brodie. "I fought them like a gentle man and I fought fair. Ay, I would have riven them to bits with these two hands if they had shown the courage to meet me. But they skulked beneath me and how could I lower myself down to their level, the dogs?"
"And are you involved now in your affairs?" asked Sir John. "Are you in debt?"
"No!" replied Brodie proudly, "I'm not. I'm finished but I owe no man a farthing. I've bonded my house but, if I have nothing, I owe nothing. I can start fair, Sir John, if you've a mind to help me. That wee Nessie of mine must have her chance. She's the cleverest lass in Levenford. She's cut out for the bursary your own father founded if she only gets the opportunity."
"Why don't you sell that ridiculous house of yours?" considered Latta, impressed more favourably by the other's words. "It's too large for you now, anyway. Then you can clear your bond and start afresh in a smaller house with the balance."
Brodie shook his head slowly.
"It's my house," he said heavily. "I built it and in it I'll bide. I would
drag it down about my head sooner than give it up." Then after a pause he added sombrely, "If that's all ye have to suggest, I'll not take any more o' your time."
"Sit down, man," cried Latta. "You're as touchy as tinder." He toyed absently with his ruler, deep in thought, whilst doubtfully, uncomprehendingly, Brodie watched the quick passage of emotions over the other's face. At last Latta spoke. "You're a strange man, Brodie," he said, "and your mind puzzles me. I was of opinion, a minute ago, to let you whistle for assistance, but somehow I feel a drag upon me which I can't resist. I will make you an offer. Business is not for you now, Brodie. You are too big, too slow, too cumbersome. You would never succeed by opening up again in your own line, even if this were possible for you. You ought to be working with these great muscles of yours and yet I suppose you would consider that beneath you. But you can use a pen, keep books, reckon up figures. We might find a place for you here. As I say, I am making you an offer it is the most I can do you may refuse it if you choose."
Brodie's eye gleamed. He had known all along that Sir John would help him, that the strong tie of friendship between them must draw the other to help him, and help him royally; he felt that something large and important was looming near for him.
"Ay, Sir John," he said eagerly, "what do ye suggest? I'm at your disposal if I can assist ye."
"I could offer you," Latta continued evenly, "a position in the office as a clerk. It so happens that there is a vacancy in the wood department at this moment. You would have something to learn, yet, out of consideration for you, I would increase the salary slightly. You would have two pounds ten shillings a week."
Brodie's jaw dropped and his face crinkled into striped furrows of bewilderment. Hardly able to believe his ears, his eyes clouded with surprise and chagrin whilst the rosy visions which he had suddenly entertained of sitting in a luxurious room one such as this perhaps and of directing a bevy of rushing subordinates, faded slowly from his eyes.
"Think it over a moment," said Latta quietly, as he got up and moved towards an inner room. "You must excuse me just now."
Brodie strove to think. Whilst the other was out of the room he sat crushed, overcome by his humiliation. He James Brodie to be a clerk! And yet what other avenue than this could he possibly pursue. For Nessie's sake he must accept; he would take the wretched post but only only for the meantime. Later, he would show them all and this Latta more than any.
"Well," said Latta, coming into the office again, "what is it to be?"
Brodie raised his head dully.
"I accept," he said in a flat voice, and added, in a tone into which he strove to insert an inflection of satire, but which succeeded merely in becoming pathetic, "and thank ye."
Dazedly he saw Latta pull the bell beside his desk, heard him exclaim to the boy who instantly appeared:
"Send Mr. Blair to me."
Blair came, apparently as quickly and mysteriously as the boy, though Brodie hardly looked at the small, precise figure or gazed into the eye which outdid Sharp's in formal coldness. He did not hear the conversation between the two others, yet, after a period of time which he knew not to be long or short he felt himself being dismissed by Latta.
He stood up, followed Blair slowly out of the rich room, along the passages, down flights of steps, across a courtyard and finally through the door of a small, detached office.
"Though it is apart from the main department, I trust you will take no advantage of this fact. This will be your desk," said Blair coldly. It was clear that he regarded Brodie as an interloper and, as he proceeded to explain the simple nature of the duties to him, he infused as much icy contempt into his tone as he might. The two other clerks in the room, both of them young men, peered curiously from over the edge of their ledgers at the strange sight before them,
incredulous that this could be their new colleague.
"You have followed me, I trust?" exclaimed Blair finally. "I've made it clear."
"When do I begin ?" asked Brodie dully, feeling that some acknowledgment was expected of him.
"To-morrow, I suppose," answered the other. "Sir John did not exactly specify. If you wish to get a grasp of the books, you can begin now, if you choose;" and he added witheringly, as he passed out of the room, "But it's only half an hour till the horn goes. I should imagine it would take you longer than that to master the work."
Mutely, as if he knew not what he did, Brodie sat down upon the high stool before the desk, the open ledger a white blur in front of him. He did not see the figures with which, in the future, he must occupy himself, nor did he feel the staring eyes of the two silent youths bent upon him in a strange constraint. He was a clerk!
A clerk working for fifty shillings a week. His mind writhed from the unalterable fact yet could not escape it. But no! He would never stand this this degradation. The moment he was out of this place, he would plunge away somewhere and drink, drink till he forgot his humiliation, steep himself in forgetfulness till the memory of it became a ridiculous nightmare. How long had that other said? Half an hour till the horn went! Yes, he could wait until then! He would remain for that short space of time in this ignoble bondage; then he would be free. A tremor seemed to run through him as, blindly, he reached out for a pen and dipped it into the inkwell.
BOOK III
"THEY couldna wear such a thing out there, even if they do have black skins," said Nancy, with a slight titter. "You're just try in' to take a rise out of me." She cocked her head knowingly at Matt, as she surveyed him from her seat upon the kitchen table and swung her well-exposed ankles towards him to point her remark more emphatically.
"Sure as anything," he replied in an animated tone, whilst from his reclining position against the dresser he ogled her with his eye, his posture, his air of elegance. "That's what the native ladies a’ ye're pleased to call them wear."
"Get away, you," she cried roguishly; "you know too much. You'll be tellin' me the monkeys in India wear trousers next." They roared together at her joke, feeling that they were having a precious fine time; she, that it was good to break the monotony of her empty forenoon, to have a change from that dour black father of his; he, that the conversation was exhibiting his social graces to the best advantage almost as if he dazzled her as she sat behind a glittering saloon bar.
"You Ye a great blether," she resumed, in an admonishing yet encouraging tone. "After tellin' me that they niggers chew red nuts like blood and clean their teeth with a bit of stick, you'll be askin' me to believe that they comb their hair wi' the leg o' a chair like Dan, Dan the funny, wee man." Again they laughed in unison until, drawing herself up with mock modesty she resumed, "But I don't mind these kinds of fairy tales. It's when ye start a' these sly jokes o' yours that ye fair make me blush. You've got a regular advantage over a poor, innocent girl like me that's never been abroad you that's visited such grand, interestin' countries. Now tell me some more!"
"But I thought ye didn't want to hear," he teased her. She pouted her richly red lips at him.
"Ye know fine what I mean, Matt. I love hearin' about a' these strange things out there. Never mind the ladies. If I had been out there, I wouldna have let ye even have a glink at them. Tell me about the flowers, and the braw coloured birds and beasts, the parrots, the leopards, the tigers. I want to know about the bazaars, the temples, the gold and ivory images I just can't get enough about them."
"You're the lass to egg me on to it," he replied. "There's no satisfyin' you. What was I speakin' about before ye asked me about the about what I'm no allowed to mention?" He grinned. "Oh! I remember now, 'twas about the sacred cows. Ay! Ye mightn't be lieve it, Nancy, but the cow is a sacred animal to millions of folks out in India. They'll have images of the animal stuck up in all places and
in the streets of the native quarters you'll see great big cows slushing about, with flowers on their horns and garlands of marigolds around their necks, poking their noses everywhere like they owned the place, into the houses and into the stalls that's like the shops, you know and not a body says 'no' to them. I once saw one of the beasts stop at a stall of fruit and vegetables and before you could say 'knife' it had cleared the place from end to end, and the man what owned the shop was obliged to sit helpless and watch it eat up all his stuff, and when it had finished he could do nowt but put up a bit prayer to it or string the remains of his flowers around its big neck."
"Ye don't say, Matt," she gasped, her eyes wide with interest; "that's a strange thing you're tellin' me. To think they would worship the likes of a cow!"
"There's all kinds of cows though, Nancy," replied Matt, with a wink; but immediately he resumed, more seriously:
"Yes! But what I'm telling you is nothing. I couldn't describe all that I've seen to you; ye've got to travel to appreciate such marvellous sights that you would otherwise never dream of. And there's other places finer than India, mind you, where the climate's better, with less mosquitoes and just as much freedom."
She considered him deliberately as, carried away by his own enthusiasm, he talked; and, viewing the slender figure in the natty brown suit, the engaging neatness of his appearance, the inherent yet not unpleasing weakness of his pale face, she was amazed that she could ever have fled from him as she had done at their first encounter. During the six weeks that had elapsed since Mrs. Brodie's