"I should think I do care for ye. Do ye think I would be here if I didna? Ye shouldna get such strange ideas in your head. That's the way mad folk talk. You'll be sayin' I'm goin' away to leave ye next."
"No, I wouldna let ye do that," he replied, crushing her fiercely against him. As he strained her small unresisting form against his own bulk, he felt that here was the anodyne to his wounded pride, forgetfulness of his humiliation, while she, turning her face sideways against his chest, looked away, thinking how ridiculous to her now was his infatuated credulity, how she wanted some one younger, less uncouth, less insatiable, some one who would marry her.
"Woman! What is it about ye that makes my heart like to burst when I have ye like this?" he said thickly, as he held her. "I seem to lose count of everything but you. I would wish this to go on for ever."
A faint smile creased her hidden features as she replied:
"And why should it not? Are ye beginnin' to get tired of me?”
"By God! You're fresher to me than ever ye were." Then after a pause he suddenly exclaimed, "It wasna just the money ye wanted, Nancy?"
She turned an indignant face to him, taking the opportunity to release herself.
"How can ye say such a thing? The very idea! Ill fling it back at ye in a minute if ye don't be quiet."
"No! No!" he interposed hurriedly. "I didna mean anything. You're welcome to it, and I'll bring ye something nice on Saturday." This was the day upon which he drew his weekly wage and with the sudden realisation of his subordinate position, of the change in his life, his face darkened again, became older, and looking down, he said, "Well, I better go then. Nessie's waitin' for me." Suddenly a thought struck him. "Where's that Matt to-day?" he demanded.
"I couldn't say." She stifled a yawn, as though her lack of interest made her positively languid. "He went out straight away after breakfast. He'll not be back now till supper, I expect."
He gazed at her for a moment then said slowly:
"Well, I'll away myself, then. I'm off!"
"That's right," she cried gaily. "Off with ye and mind ye come straight back from the office. If ye have a single drink in ye when ye come in, I'll let ye have the teapot at your head."
From under his heavy eyebrows he looked at her with an upward, shamefaced glance that sat ill upon his lined and sombre countenance; nodding his head to reassure her, he gave her arm a final squeeze and went out.
In the front courtyard, now thickly covered by sprouting weeds and denuded of the ridiculous ornament of the brass cannon which three months ago had been sold for its value as old metal - he found Nessie patiently awaiting him, supporting her unformed, drooping figure against the iron post of the front gate. At the sight of him she raised herself and, without a word, they set out together upon their walk to the point where their paths diverged at the end of Railway Road, where he would proceed to his work in the shipyard and she to hers at school. This daily pilgrimage had now become an established custom between Brodie and his daughter and during its course he had the practice of encouraging and admonishing her, of spurring her onward to achieve the brilliant success he desired; but to-day he did not speak, tapping along with his thick ash stick, his coat sagging upon him, his square hat, faded and unbrushed, thrust back in a painful caricature of his old-time arrogance, marching silently and apart, with an air of inward absorption which made it impossible for her to speak to him. Always, now, in the public gaze, he retired into himself, holding his head erect, looking directly in front of him and seeing no one, creating thus, for himself, wide depopulated streets filled, not with curious, staring, sneering faces, but by the solitude of his single presence.
When they reached their place of separation, he stopped an odd arresting figure and said to her:
"Away and work hard now, Nessie. Stick into it. Remember what I'm always tellin' you 'what's worth doin' is worth doin' well.' Ye've got to win that Latta that's a' there is about it. Here!" he put his hand in his pocket "Here's a penny for chocolate." He almost smiled. "Ye can pay me back when you've won the Bursary."
She took the coin from him timidly yet gratefully, and went on her way to face her three hours of work in a stuffy classroom. If she had taken no breakfast and little lunch, she would at least be sustained and fortified against her study by the ample nourishment of a sticky bar of raspberry cream chocolate!
When she had gone the faint show of animation in his face died out completely and, bracing himself up, he turned and continued his progress to the office which he hated. As he drew near to the shipyard he hesitated slightly in his course, wavered, then faded into the doorway of the "Fitter's Bar" where, in the public bar. filled bv workmen in moleskins and dungaiees. Yet to him tenanted by no one but himself, he swallowed a neat whisky, then quickly emerged and,retaining the fumes of the spirit by a compression of his lips, morosely entered the portals of Latta and Company.
II
ON THE evening of the following day, when Nancy had departed to visit her aunt at Overton, and with Matt, as he always was at this hour, out of the house, a sublime and tranquil domesticity lay upon the kitchen of the Brodie home. So, at least, it seemed to the master of the house as, reclining back in his own chair, head tilted, legs crossed, pipe in mouth, and in his hand a full glass of his favourite beverage, hot whisky toddy, he contemplated Nessie, seated at the table, bent over her lessons, her pale brows knitted in concentration, then surveyed his mother who, in the temporary absence of the hated intruder, had not retired to her room but sat crouched in her old corner beside the blazing fire. A faint flush marked Brodie's cheeks; his lips, as he sucked at his pipe, were wet and full; the eye, now turned meditatively upon the contents of the steaming tumbler, humid, eloquent; by some strange transformation his troubles were forgotten, his mind filled contentedly by the thought that it was a delightful experience for a man to spend an evening happily in his own home. True, he did not now go out in the evenings, or indeed, at any hours but those of his work, shunning the streets and the club; banned, too, from the small back parlour of the virtuous Phemie, and it should logically have been an event of less moment for him to hug the fire and one less productive of such unusual gratification. But to-night, recognising that he would not be called upon to account to his housekeeper for his lateness at the tea table, he had dallied by the wayside on his return from work and now, mellowed further by a few additional drinks and the thought of more to come, the sadness of his separation from Nancy tempered by the exhilaration of his unwonted liberty and by the consideration of their reunion later in the evening, his induced felicity had enveloped him earlier and more powerfully than on most nights. Viewed from his armchair, through the clear amber of the toddy, his position in the office became a sinecure, his subordinate routine merely an amusing recreation; it was his whim to work like that and he might terminate it at his will; he was glad to be finished with his business, an ignoble trade which had clearly never suited his temper or his breeding; he would, however, shortly abandon the hobby of his present post for a more prominent, more lucrative occupation, startling the town, satisfying himself and delighting Nancy. His Nancy ah! That was a woman for a man! As her image rose before him he toasted her, hoping enthusiastically that she might now be having a pleasant time with her aunt at Overton. Rosy mists floated through the dirty ill-kept room, tinting the soiled curtains, veiling the darker coloured square which marked the disappearance from the wall of Bell's engraving, sending a glow into Nessie's pale cheeks and softening even the withered, envious face of his mother. He watched the old woman's starting eyes over the edge of his glass as he took a long satisfying drink and, when he had
drawn his breath, cried jeeringly:
"Ye're wishin' you were me, ye auld faggot. Ay, I can see from the greedy look about you that you wish this was goin' into your belly and not mine. Well, take it from me, in case ye don't know, it's a great blend o' whisky, the sugar is just to taste and the water is right because there's not too much o't." He laughed uproariously at his own wit, causing Nessie to look up with a scared expression, but catching his glance, she immediately lowered hers as he exclaimed:
"On with the work, ye young limmer! What are ye wastin' your time for? Am I payin' for your education for you to sit gogglin’ at folks when you should be at your books."
Turning to his mother again, he shook his head solemnly, continuing volubly, "I must keep her at it! That's the only way to correct the touch o' her mother's laziness that's in her. But trust me! I'll make her a scholar in spite of it. The brains are there." He took another pull at his glass and sucked noisily at his pipe.
The old woman returned his glance sourly, dividing her gaze between his flushed face and the whisky in his hand as she remarked:
"Where is that where is she gane to-night?"
He stared at her for a moment then guffawed loudly. "Ye mean Nancy, ve auld witch. Has she put a spell on you too, that you're feared even to lift her name?" Then after a pause, during which he assumed a leering gravity, he continued, "Well, I hardly like to tell ye, but if ye must know, she's awa' to the Band of Hope meetin'.”
She followed the vehemence of his mirth, as he shook with laughter, with an unsympathetic eye, and replied as tartly as she dared:
"I don't see much to laugh about. If she had gone to the Band o' Hope when she was younger she might have " she stopped, feeling his eye upon her, thinking that she had gone too far.
"Go ahead," he gibed; "finish what ye were sayin'. Let us all have our characters when you're about it. There's no pleasin' some folk. Ye werna satisfied with Mamma, and now ye're startin' to pick holes in my Nancy. I suppose ye think you could keep the house yoursel' that maybe ye might get an odd pingle at the bottle that way. Faugh! The last time ye cooked my dinner for me ye nearly poisoned me." He considered her amusedly from his elevated position, thinking of how he might best take her down a peg.
Suddenly a wildly humorous idea struck him, which, in its sardonic richness, made him slap his thigh delightedly. She was grudging him his drink was she, eyeing it as a cat would a saucer of cream, gasping for it, ready to lap it up at the first opportunity. She should have it then, she who was so quick to run down other people! By Gad! She should have it. He would make her full, yes, full as a whelk. He realised that he had plenty of whisky in the house, that in any case it would take very little to go to the old woman's head, and as some foretaste of the drollery of his diversion invaded him, he rocked with suppressed hilarity and smote his leg again exuberantly. Losh! But he was a card!
Then all at once he cut off his laughter, composed his features and, narrowing his small eyes slyly, remarked cunningly:
"Ah! It seems hardly fair o' me to have spoken to ye like that, woman. I can see it's put ye right down. You're lookin' quite daunted. Here! Would ye like a drop speerits to pull ye together?" Then, as she looked up quickly, suspiciously, he nodded his head largely and continued, "Ay. I mean it. I'm quite serious. What way should I have it an no' you? Away and get yoursel' a glass."
Her dull eye lighted with eagerness, but knowing his ironic tongue too well, she still doubted him, was afraid to move for fear a burst of his derisive laughter should disillusion her, and moistening her lips with her tongue she exclaimed in a tremulous voice:
"You're not just makin' fun o' me, are ye?"
Again he shook his head, this time negatively, vigorously, and reaching down to the bottle conveniently beside his chair he held it out enticingly before her.
"Look! Teacher's Highland Dew. Quick! Away and get yoursel' a tumbler!"
She started to her feet eagerly, as though she were beginning a race, and made her way to the scullery, trembling at the thought of her luck, she who had not lipped a drop since the day of the funeral and then only wine, not the real, comforting liquor. She was back, holding out the glass, almost before he had controlled the fresh burst of amusement which her avid, tottering progress had afforded him; but as he poured her out a generous allowance, he remarked in a steady, solicitous voice:
"An old body like yersel' needs a drop now and then. See, I'm givin' you plenty and don't take much water with it."
"Oh, no, James," she protested. "Don't give me ower much. You know I'm not fond o' much o't just a wee drappie to keep out the cold."
At her last words a sudden memory cut across his jocularity like a whip lash and he snarled at her:
"Don't use these words to me! It minds me too much of somebody I'm not exactly fond of. Why do ye speak like a soft and mealy-mouthed hypocrite?" He glowered at her while she drank her whisky quickly, for fepr he should take it from her; then, urged by a more vindictive spirit, he cried out, "Come on. Here's some more. Glass about."
"Na! Na!" she exclaimed mildly. "I've had enough. It's warmed me nicely and gie'n my mouth a bit flavour. Thenk ye all the same, but I'll no' have any more."
"Ye’re not say no to me." he shouted roughly. "What are ye to refuse good spirits? Ye asked for it and you'll have it, even if I've to pour it down your auld thrapple. Hold out your glass; we'll drink fair."
Wonder ingly she submitted, and when he had given her another liberal helping, she drank it more slowly, appreciatively, smacking her lips and rolling it over her tongue, murmuring between her sips,
"It's the real stuff, richt enough. It's unco kind o' ye, James, to spare me this. I've never had so much afore. Troth. I'm not used to it." She was silent whilst the liquid in her glass dwindled, then all at once she burst out, "It's got a graund tang on your tongue has it no? 'Deed it almost makes me feel young again." She tittered slightly. "I was just thinkin' " she tittered more loudly.
At the sound of her levity he smiled darkly.
"Yes," he drawled, "and what were ye thinkin', auld woman? Tell us so that we can enjoy the joke."