"I don't see much of a whine here," she replied slowly. "It's a decent enough written letter."
"Bah!" he cried, "It's not the way it's written I'm thinkin' of! It's the meanin' of it all that concerns me. There's no other explanation possible, and the very thought of it lifts me like a dram o' rare spirits."
"You're not goin' to let her come back, then?" she queried tentatively.
"No!" he shouted. "I'm not! I've got you to look after me now. Does she think I want the likes o' her ? She can stop in this place in London that she's in, and rot there, for all I care."
"Ye mustna decide in a hurry," she admonished him; "after all, she's your own daughter. Think it over well before ye do anything rash."
He looked at her sulkily.
"Rash or not rash, I'll never forgive her," he growled, "and that's all there is to it." Then his eye suddenly lighted as he exclaimed, "I tell ye what might be a bawr though, Nancy and something that would cut her to the quick. Supposin' ye were to write back and tell her that the post she applied for was filled. That would make her feel pretty small, would it not? Will ye do't, woman?"
"No, I will not," she cried immediately; "the very idea. Ye maun do it yoursel' when you're about it."
"Well, at least ye'll help me to write my answer," he protested, "Suppose you and me do it thegether to-night when I come home. That smart head o' yours is sure to think on something clever for me to put in."
"Wait till to-night then," she replied, after some consideration, "and I'll think about it in the meantime."
"That's grand," he cried, playing in his mind with the idea of collaborating with her in the evening over this delightful task of composing a cutting reply to his daughter. "We'll lay our heads together. I know what you can do when you try."
As he spoke a faint horn sounded in the distance, swelling and falling at times, but always audible, entering the room with gentle though relentless persistency.
"Gracious," cried Nancy quickly, "there's the nine o'clock horn and you not out of the house yet. Ye'll be late as can be if ye don't hurry. Come on now, away with ye!"
"I'm not carin' for their blasted horns," he replied sullenly. "I'll be late if I like. You would think I was the slave of that damned whistle the way it draws me away from ye just when I'm not wantin' to go."
"I don't want ye to get the sack though, man! What would ye do if ye lost your job?"
"I would get a better one. I've just been thinkin' about that lately myself. What I've got is not near good enough for me."
"Wheesht! Now, Brodie," she conciliated him, "you're well enough as ye are. Ye might look further and fare worse. Come on and I'll see ye to the door!"
His expression softened as he looked at her and rose obediently, exclaiming:
"Don't you worry anyway, Nancy. I'll always have enough to keep you." At the front door he turned to her and said, in a voice which sounded almost pathetic, "It'll be a' day until I see you again."
She drew back a little and half shut the door as she replied irrelevantly:
"What a mornin', too. Ye should take an umbrella instead o' that auld stick. Are you minding about gettin' your dinner out to-day?"
"I'm mindin' about it," he answered submissively. "You know I heed what you tell me. Come on now give us a kiss before I go."
She was about to shut the door in his face when, at his attitude, something seemed to melt within her and, raising herself on her toes, inclining her head upwards, she touched with her lips the deep furrow that marked the centre of his forehead.
"There," she whispered under her breath, "that's for the man that ye were."
He stared at her uncomprehcndingly with eyes that gazed at hers appealingly, inquiringly, like the eyes of a devoted dog.
"What were ye say in'?" he muttered stupidly.
"Nothing," she cried lightly, withdrawing herself again. "I was just biddin' ye good-bye."
He hesitated, stammered uncomfortably:
"If it was If ye were thinkin' about about the drink, I want to tell ye that I'm going to cut it down to something reasonable. I know ye don't like me to take so much and I want to please ye, woman."
She shook her head slowly, looking at him curiously, intently.
"'Twasna that at all. If ye feel ye need a dram, I suppose ye maun have it. It's the only it's a comfort to ye, I suppose. Now away with ye, man."
"Nancy, dear, ye understand a man weel," he murmured in a moved voice. "There's nothing I couldna do for ye when you're like this."
He shifted his feet heavily, in some embarrassment at his own outburst, then in a gruflf voice full of his suppressed feeling exclaimed,
"I'll I'll away, then, woman. Good-bye just now."
"Good-bye," she replied evenly.
With a last look at her eyes he turned, faced the grey and melancholy morning, and moved off into the rain, a strange figure, coatless, crowned extravagantly by the large, square hat, from under which thick tuffs of uncut hair protruded fantastically, his arms behind his back, his heavy ash plant trailing grotesquely behind him in the mud.
He walked down the road, his brain confused by conflicting thoughts amongst which mingled a sense of abashment at the unexpected exhibition of his own emotion; but, as he progressed, there emerged from this confusion a single perception the worth to him of Nancy. She was human clay like himself, and she understood him, knew the needs of a man, appreciated, as she had just remarked, that he required sometimes the comfort of a glass. He did not feel the rain as it soaked into his clothing, so enwrapped was he in the contemplation of her, and into the dullness of his set face small gleams of light from time to time appeared. As he approached the shipyard, however, his reflections grew less agreeable, evidenced by the unrelieved harshness of his countenance, and he was concerned by his lateness, by the possibility of a reprimand, and affected by a depressing realisation, which time had not eradicated, of the very humiliating nature of his employment. He thought, too, in a different light of the letter that he had just received, which appeared to him as an intolerable presumption on the part of her who had once been his daughter and which now reminded him bitterly of the past. An acrid taste came into his mouth at his own recollection whilst the salt, smoked fish which he had eaten for breakfast made him feel parched and thirsty; outside the "Fitter's Bar" he deliberately paused and, fortified by Nancy's parting remark, muttered, "Gad, but I'm dry, and I'm half an hour late as it is. I may as weel make a job o' it while I'm about it."
He went in with a half -defiant glance over his shoulder at the block of offices that lay opposite and, when he emerged, a quarter of an hour later, his bearing had regained something of its old challenging assertion. In this manner he entered the main swing doors of the offices and, threading the corridors, now with the facility of habit, entered his own room with his head well in ihe air, surveying in turn the two young clerks who looked up from their work to greet him.
"Has that auld, nosey pig been round yet?" he demanded; "because if he has, I don't give a tinker's curse about it."
"Mr. Blair?" replied one of the pair. "No! he hasn't been round yet!"
"Humph!" cried Brodie, fiercely annoyed at the sudden feeling of relief which had swept involuntarily over him. "I suppose ye think I'm lucky. Well! Let me tell ye both that I don't give a damn whether he knows I've been late or not. Tell him if ye like! It's all one to me," and, flinging his hat upon a peg and his stick into a corner, he sat heavily down upon his stool. The other clerks exchanged a glance and after a slight pause, the spokesman of the two remarked diffidently;
"We wouldn't say a word, Mr. Brodie. You surely know that, but look here, you're wringing wet will you not take your jacket off and dry it?"
"No! I'll not take it off!" he replied roughly, opening his ledger, lifting his pen and beginning to work; but after a moment he raised his head and said in a different tone, "But thank ye all the same You're good lads both and I know you've lent me a hand in the past. The truth is, I've had some news that upset me, so I'm just not quite my usual this mornin'."
They knew something of his affdirs from certain bouts of rambling dissertations during the past months and the one who had not yet spoken remarked:
"Not Nessie, I hope, Mr. Brodie?"
"No!" he answered. "Not my Nessie! She's as right as the mail, thank God, workin' like a trooper and headin' straight for the Latta! She's never given me a moment's trouble. It was just something else, but I know what to do. I can win through it like I've done with all the rest."
They forbore to question him further and the three resumed work in a silence broken only by the scratching of pens on paper, the rustle of a turning page, the restless scrape of a stool and the mutter from Brodie's lips as he strove to concentrate his fogged brain in the effort to contend with the figures before him.
The forenoon had advanced well upon its course when a precise step sounded in the corridor outside and the door of the room opened to admit the correct figure of Mr. Blair. With a sheaf of papers in his hand he stood for a moment, adjusting his gold-rimmed pince-nez upon his elevated nose, and scrutinising at some length the three clerks now working under his severe eyes. His gaze eventually settled upon the sprawling form of Brodie from whose damp clothing the steam now rose in a warm, vaporous mist, and as he looked his glance became more disapproving; he cleared his throat warningly and strode forward, fluttering the papers in his grasp like feathers of his ruffled plumage. "Brodie," he began sharply, "a moment of your attention, please!"
Without changing his posture Brodie lifted his head from the desk and regarded the other mordantly.