He looked at her doubtfully.
'Surprise is the right word, after the way you've been treatin' me.' He paused and added grimly, 'I'm damned if I know what makes me so soft wi' ye.'
'Don't talk like that, Brodie,' she reprimanded mildly. 'Your language is like a heathen Chinaman's sometimes.'
'What do you know about Chinamen?' he retorted moodily, at last turning his attention towards the kipper and beginning to consume it in slow, large mouthfuls. After a moment he remarked, in an altered tone, 'This has a relish in it, Nancy it's the sort of thing I can fancy in the mornin's now.'
She continued to look at him in an oddly restrained fashion as he conveyed the food to his lowered mouth, then suddenly a thought seemed to strike her, and she cried:
'Guidsakes, what am I dreamin' about! There's a letter came for ye this mornin' that I forgot a' about.'
'What!' he retorted, arresting his movements and glancing up in surprise from under his thick, greying eyebrows. 'A letter for me!'
'Ay! I clean forgot in the hurry to get your breakfast. Here it is,' and she took a letter from the corner of the dresser and handed it to him. He held the letter for a moment in his outstretched hand, drew it near to him with a puzzled look in his eyes, observed that it was stamped by the postmark of London, then, carelessly inserting his thick thumb, ripped the envelope open and drew out the sheet within. Watching him with some slight interest as he read the written words, Nancy observed the expressions of bewilderment, amazement, enlightenment, and triumph sweep across his face with the rapidity of clouds traversing a dark and windy sky. Finally his expression assumed a strange satisfaction as he turned the letter, again read it slowly through, and, lifting his eyes, fixed them upon the distance.
'Would ye believe it,' he muttered, 'and after all this time!'
'What?' she cried. 'What is it about?'
'She has climbed down and wants to come crawlin' back!' He paused, absorbed in his own considerations, as though his words had been sufficient to enlighten her fully.
'I don't know what you mean,' she exclaimed sharply. 'Who are ye talkin' about?'
'My daughter Mary,' he replied slowly; 'the one that I kicked out of my house. I swore she would never get back until she had licked my boots, ay, and she said she never would come back, and here she is, in this very letter, cadging to win home and keep house for me. God! It's a rich recompense for me after a' these years!' He held up the letter between his tense fingers as though his eyes would
never cease to gloat upon it, sneering as he read : ' 'Let the past be forgotten! I want you to forgive me.' If that doesna justify me my name's not Brodie. 'Since Mamma has gone I would like to come home. I am not unhappy here but sometimes lonely,' ' he continued with a snarl. '-Lonely! By God, it's what she deserves. Lonely! Long may it continue. If she thinks she'll gel back here as easy as that, she's far mistaken. I'll not have her. No! Never!' He returned
his eyes to Nancy as though to demand her approval and, with twisted lips, resumed, 'Don't ye see how this puts me in the right, woman! She was proud, proud as ye make them, but I can see she's broken now. Why else should she want home? God! What a comedown for her to have to whine to get taken back like this and and what a triumph for me to refuse her. She wants to be my housekeeper!' He laughed harshly. 'That's a good one, is it no', Nancy? She doesna know that I've got you She's wantin' your job!'
She had picked the letter from his hand and was reading it.
'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.'
