eyebrows, then, reassured by the brightness now manifested in her eyes, he cried, 'You'll do, though you've got the look on ye as if ye couldna get to that examination quick enough. Away wi' ye, then. I'll warrant ye'll put your back into it. I've got ye just in the right fettle. Ye canna help but win it now.'
He clapped his hands together as though shooing her off, exclaiming, 'Off with ye now and put salt on that Grierson's tail.'
'Trust me,' she returned lightly. 'I'll put so much salt on him that I'll pickle him!'
'Good enough,' he cried delightedly, following her fondly with his eyes as she went out of the gate and down the road. She did not once look back. As he stood at his door watching her slight figure dwindling into the distance, he was filled momentarily by a powerful return of his old, proud, disdainful complacency. Gad! But she was a smarter, was his Nessie! As clever as you make them, with the sharpness of a needle, a sharpness that would prick that big, swollen bladder of a Grierson until the wind rushed out of him like a burst bagpipe. He had primed her well for the event too, made her as keen as a young greyhound to get out of the leash, and when she had left him just now, there had been a gleam in her eye that had fairly warmed him.
He had done that by his firm handling of the lass, forcing some of his own fire into her blood, filling her with a determination to succeed.
'Stick into it, Nessie!' That had been his slogan and one which was more than justified! She would walk away with the Latta, putting a hundred miles, or marks, or whatever it might be, between Grierson and herself. Grierson might even be last! With a grim smile at the relish of his thoughts, he slowly turned, sniffed the clear air with an added appreciation from his freedom, mounted the steps and went into the house.
Inside he halted aimlessly in the hall, losing something of the first flush of his elation in the realisation that, although it was not yet eleven o'clock and he was to-day a free man, he did not quite know what to do with himself; but after a moment he went into the kitchen and gravitated to his chair, where he sat watching Mary out of the corner of his eye, as she went about her morning tasks.
She made no comment upon his absence from the office and was, as always, quiet and composed, though to- day an added darkness lay in and around the pools of her eyes. In her manner she gave him no indication of the nature of her inward thoughts. He opened his lips to speak to her, to make some scathing comment upon the disparity between Nessie and herself barbed with a bitter innuendo concerning her past history, but he did not utter the words, knowing that whatever he said would be met by the same impenetrable silence. He would not speak yet! She could, he thought, be as dour as she liked and as quiet as she liked, but he knew what was at the back of her mind in spite of all her assumption of indifference. She was after his Nessie, interfering whenever she could, obstructing his intentions, laying herself out slyly at every turn to defeat his purpose. Let her wait though! He too was waiting and if ever she directly opposed him with Nessie, it would be a sad day for her!
As, without appearing to observe her, he followed the smooth, graceful movements of his daughter, an association of ideas confronted him suddenly with the memory of another woman whom he had loved as much as he hated this one Nancy, the ultimate object of his waking, yes, even of his dreaming, mind. Now, however, he
clenched his teeth firmly and shook the obsessing vision of her from his head, determined that nothing should mar the triumph of this day. It was Nessie that he wanted to think of Nessie, his solace who would now be sitting in the train, revolving in her clever brain some of these lessons which he had kept her at so assiduously, or considering, perhaps, the last exhortation he had given her. He had always felt that this would be a great day for him and now he was aware that he must not let himself become depressed, that he must sustain his spirits at that high level to which they had risen earlier in the morning. He would have a drink just to liven him a little.
His eye brightened as he arose from his chair and went to the dresser, where he opened the small cupboard on the left, drew out the familiar black bottle and now kept always in readiness beside it his own small tumbler. With the tumbler in one hand and the bottle in the other, he sat down again in his chair, poured himself out some whisky and at once savoured it gratefully, appreciatively, holding the liquor for a moment between his palate and his tongue. The first drink of the day always passed over his lips with a richer and more satisfying flavour than any other, and now it trickled so warmly down his gullet that he was impelled to follow it quickly by a second. The first had been to himself this would be in honour of Nessie! She might now be out of the train if she followed, as she undoubtedly would, his directions to get out at Partick Station, and might at this very moment be ascending the steep slope of Gilmorehill towards the grey pile of the University on its summit. He was conscious that this noble building, breathing of erudition, was well suited for the holding of the Latta examination, well worthy for the making of his daughter's mark within it. The professors might already have heard of her cleverness in some stray manner, for reports of brilliant scholars were circulated in devious but far-reaching ways in the academic world, and, even if this were not so, she had a name which they would recognise at once, which was a
passport to her, there and anywhere she might choose to go. He drank to the University, to Nessie, and again to the name of Brodie.
This was better! To-day his mind reacted to the whisky in a different manner from that mere dulling of his morose despondency which had lately been the result of his potations; now, the old-time exhilaration of the early days of his toping was returning to him, and as he became aware of this delicious fact, his spirits rose, and he began to cast about in his mind for some channel into which he might direct his new-found animation. It was unconscionably dull for a cheerful man to sit under the sombre eye of his melancholy daughter, and, perceiving that he would have to seek his amusement out of the house, he considered for a moment the idea of visiting the office, not, of course, to work, but merely, in an informal way, to divert those two young sprigs in his room and to tweak the offensive nose of the upstart Blair. Being Saturday, however, it was a half day at the office which meant that they would soon be stopping work and going home and he felt, too, that the occasion demanded a more appropriate celebration than merely a return to the scene of his daily labour. He abandoned this idea with only a faint regret, which vanished completely as he drowned it in another glass of Mountain Dew.
Dew! Dew upon the grass green grass the bowling green! Ah! he had it at last! Who said that there was not inspiration in that famous blend of Teacher which he always favoured? His face lit up with a lively delight at his aptness in remembering that the summer tournament of the Levenford Bowling Club was to be held at the Wellhall Green this afternoon, and he smiled broadly as he considered that all the worthies would be present present for a certainty from wee Johnnie Paxton up to the Lord High Provost Grierson himself.
'Gad!' he muttered, slapping his thigh, in quite his old manner, 'that's the ticket, right enough! I'll have them all boxed up in that one place and I'll throw the Latta in their teeth there and then. I'll show them I'm not feared o' them. It's high time I was makin' myself heard again. It strikes me I've been over long about it.'
He crowned his satisfaction with a bumper, then, raising his voice, cried:
'Hurry up with my dinner in there. I'm wantin' it quick. I'm goin' out this afternoon and I want something inside of me first. Let it be some decent food too, and none o' that swill ye were foistin' off on Nessie this morning.'
'Your dinner's ready, Father,' Mary replied quietly. 'You can have it now, if you wish.'
'I do wish, then,' he retorted. 'Get on with it and don't stand glumphin' at me like that.'
She quickly laid the table and served him with his meal, but though this was to his taste, and indeed infinitely better than any which Nancy had ever prepared for him, he gave neither praise nor thanks. He did justice to it however, and with an appetite stimulated by the whisky, for once ate heartily, dividing his thoughts, as he masticated vigorously, between his plans for the afternoon and the further consideration of Nessie. She would have actually begun the examination by this time and would be sitting driving her pen over page after page of paper whilst the others, and particularly young Grierson, chewed the wooden ends of theirs and stared at her enviously. Now he saw her, having entirely finished one exercise book, rise from her place and, her small, self-conscious face glowing, advance to demand another from the examiner. She had used up one book al-ready, the first in the room to do so Nessie Brodie, his daughter whilst that young snipe Grierson had not even filled half of his yet! He chuckled slightly at her remarkable prowess and bolted his food with an added gusto from the vision of the other's discomfiture. His thoughts ran chiefly in this strain during the rest of the meal and, when he had finished, he arose and drank again, emptying the bottle to the hope that she would require not two, but three books to convey to the professors the wide extent of her knowledge.
It was still too early for his descent upon the Wellhall Bowling Green, for he wished to allow a full congregation of the notables to collect, and realising that he was not yet ripe with the careless rapture best suited to such an adventure, confronted, too, by the mere hollow shell which had held the Mountain Dew, he decided to adventure out and rest himself for an hour in the Wellhall Vaults which conveniently adjoined the Green.
Accordingly, he left the house and proceeded down the road, not however, with the set, morose face and
