Brodie glowered at him, exclaiming angrily:
"She's as sound as a bell. Are you another o' these safties that are aye trying to make our folks to be ill. She's as right as the mail, I tell you. She had a wee bit turn last month, but it was nothing. I had her at Lawrie and he said she had a heid on her in a thousand ay, in a million, I would say!" He glanced around triumphantly, looked to the bottle to express his elation, but, observing that it was empty, seized it and with a fortunate aim hurled it into the waste-paper basket in the corner whence it was later retrieved and cast into the Leven through the charity of one of his long-suffering colleagues.
"That's an aim for ye," he cried gaily. 'Tve got an eye in my head! I could bring down a running rabbit at fifty paces without a blink. A rabbit! Damnation! If I was where I should be, I would be at the butts bringing down the grouse and the pheasants like droppin' hailstones." He was about to embark once more on the nobility of his estate when suddenly his eyes fell upon the clock. "Gad! Would ye believe it. It's nearly five o'clock. I'm the man to pass the hours away." He cocked his eye facetiously, snickered and resumed, "Time passes quick when you're workin' hard, as that stickit whelp Blair would say. But I'm afraid I must leave ye, lads. Ye're fine fellows and I'm gey an' fond o' ye, but I've something more important to attend to now." He rubbed his hands together in a delightful anticipation and added, with a leer, "If the fancy man comes in before five just tell him his accounts are in order and say I've gone to buy him a rattle." He got off his stool ponderously, slowly assumed his hat, adjusting it twice before the tilt of its dusty brim pleased him, picked up his heavy stick and stood with a gravity now definitely drunken, framing the doorway with his swaying bulk.
"Lads!" he cried, apostrophising them with his stick, "if ye knew where I was goin' now, the eyes would drop out your heads for pure jealousy. You couldna come, though. No! No! There's only one man in this Borough could gang this bonnie, bonnie gait." Surveying them impressively he added, with great dramatic gusto, "And that's me!" swept their forbearing but disconcerted faces with a final glare and swung slowly out of the room.
His star was in the ascendant, for as he strode noisily along the passages, bumping from side to side in his erratic career, he met no one and, at five minutes to five, shot through the main swing doors into the open and set his course for home.
The rain had now ceased and the air came fresh and cool in the darkness through which the newly lighted lamps shimmered upon the wet streets, like an endless succession of topaz moons upon the surface of black, still water. The regular repetition of these reflections, each one of which seemed to float insidiously towards him as he walked, amused Brodie monstrously, and he grinned as he told himself he would assuredly inform Nancy of his experience with this strangely inverted celestial phenomenon. Nancy! He chuckled aloud at the consideration of all they had to talk of to-night, from the composition of a real stinger of a letter for that one in London to the delicious proposition which he had determined to put before her. She would, of course, be perturbed to see him return with perhaps and he admitted this magnanimously to the darkness a heavier
dram in him than usual, but the sudden delight at his offer of matrimony would dispel all her annoyance. He knew she had always wanted an established position, the randy, such as a fine man like him could give her, and now he heard her overwhelmed voice exclaiming,
"Do ye mean it, Brodie! Losh! Man, ye've fair sweepit' me away. Marry ye? Ye know I would jump at the chance like a cock at a groset. Come till I give ye a grand, big hug." Yes! she would be kinder to him than ever after this sublime concession on his part and his eyes flickered at the thought of the especial manifestations of her favour which this should elicit from her to-night. As he advanced, warmly conscious that each staggering step took him nearer to her,- he could find no comparison strong enough to adequately describe her charm, her possessing hold upon him. "She's she's bonnie!" he muttered inarticulately; "the flesh o' her is as white and firm as the breist of a fine chicken. I could almost make a meal o' her." His thoughts grew more compelling, served to intensify his longing, to add to his excitement, and with a final rapid struggle he launched himself up the steps of his house, fumbled impatiently at the lock with his key, opened the door, and burst into the obscurity of the hall. "Nancy," he cried loudly, "Nancy! Here I am back for ye!"
He stood for a moment in the darkness, awaiting her answering cry, but, as she did not reply, he smiled fatuously to think that she should be hiding, waiting for him to go to her, and taking a box of matches from his pocket, he lit the lobby gas, planted his stick firmly in the stand, hung up his hat and went eagerly into the kitchen. This, too, was in darkness.
"Nancy," he shouted, in astonishment not unmixed with annoyance, "what are ye playin' at? I don't want a game o' blind man's buff. I want none o' these fancy tricks, woman! I want you. Come out from wherever ye be." Still there was no response, and, advancing awkwardly to the gas bracket above the mantlepiece he lit this gas, turned to survey the room, and to his amazement observed that the table was not laid, that no preparation for tea had been begun. For a moment he remained quite still, fixing the bare table with an astounded gaze, compressing his lips angrily, until suddenly a light seemed to break in upon him and he muttered slowly, with a loosening of his frown: "She's awa' to the station with that aunt of hers. Has not she the nerve, though? She's the only body that would
dare to do it. Sends me out for my dinner and then keeps me waitin' for my tea."
A faint thrill of amusement ran through him, deepening to a roar of laughter as he contemplated, almost proudly, her hardihood. Gad, but she was a fit mate for him ! Yet when his mirth had subsided he did not quite know what to do, presumed eventually that he must await the pleasure of her return and, standing with his back to the fireplace, he allowed his gaze to wander idly around the room. To him, the very atmosphere breathed of her presence; he saw her flitting airily about, sitting nonchalantly in his armchair, smiling, talking, even flighting him. Yes! the very hatpin sticking into the dresser was an indication of her own saucy, impudent, inimitable indifference.
But something else lay upon the dresser, held in place by that pin, a letter that presumptuous communication which he had received at breakfast time from his daughter and moving forward he took it up disdainfully in his hands. Suddenly his expression changed, as he observed that it was not the same envelope but another, addressed to him in his son's sloping clerkly hand, a penmanship so like Matt's own smooth plausibility that it had always irritated him. Another letter! And from Matthew! Was the sly, sneaking coward soafraid of him now that he must write his messages instead of delivering them face to face like a man? Filled by a profound contempt he gazed at the neat writing on the envelope which, however, became modified, as, tilting his head to one side he considered incon sequently how well his own name looked almost as well as in print in these precise characters now before him. James Brodie, Esquire! It was a name to be proud of, that one! Smiling a little, a large and lordly appreciation swept over him, restoring him again to complacency and, in the excess of his own satisfaction, he carelessly tore open the letter and pulled out the single sheet within.
"Dear Father," he read, 'Tou were too high and mighty to hear about my new post or you would have learned that it was a position for a married man. Don't expect Nancy back. She's come to see that I don't fall off my horse! Your loving and obedient son, Matt."
Seized by a vast stupefaction, he read over the scanty words twice, looked up unseeingly, as he muttered incredulously: