unseeing stare which marked him lately in the streets but, fortified by his mood and the knowledge of his daughter's success, with a freer, easier carriage which again invited inspection. Few people were about as yet, but when he had crossed Railway Road he observed on the other side of the street the stately figure of Doctor Lawrie, not driving, but walking, and immediately he crossed over and accosted him.
'Good day to you, Doctor Lawrie,' he cried affably. It had been 'Lawrie' in the old days and without the affability. 'I'm pleased to meet ye.'
'Good day,' returned the other, thinking of his unpaid bill and speaking with the small store of curtness he possessed.
'It's well met for us just now,' retorted Brodie. 'Well met! Do ye know what's happening at this very moment?'
Lawrie eyed him warily as he uttered a cautious 'No.'
'My Nessie is up at the University, winning the Latta for me while you and me are talkin' here,' cried Brodie. 'It's a justification of your own words. Don't ye mind what ye told me, that she had a head on her in a thousand?'
'Indeed! Indeed!' returned Lawrie pompously and with a slight degree of cordiality. 'I'm gratified to hear that. Winning the Latta. It all helps. It'll be a little more grist to the mill, I suppose.' He looked sideways at the other, hoping that he would take the hint, then suddenly he looked directly at Brodie and exclaimed, 'Winning? Did ye say she had won the Latta?'
'It's as good as won,' replied Brodie comfortably. 'She's at it the now this very minute. I took the day off to see that she got away in the best o' fettle. She went off with a glint in her eye that spoke for victory. She'll fill three books ere she's done!'
'Indeed!' said Lawrie again, and, eyeing the other strangely, he drew insensibly away, remarking, 'I'll have to be getting along now an important consultation my horse just cast a shoe along the road there I'm late!'
'Don't go yet, man,' remonstrated Brodie, buttonholing the embarrassed Lawrie firmly. 'I havena told ye half about my daughter yet. Fm real fond o' that lass, you know. In my own way. Just in my own way. I've wrought hard with her for the last six months.'
'Pray let me go, Mr. Brodie,' cried Lawrie, struggling to free himself.
'We've burned the midnight oil between us, have Nessie and I,' retorted Brodie gravely. 'It's been a heap o' work but by gad, it's been worth it!'
'Really, sir,' exclaimed Lawrie in a shrill, indignant tone, wrenching himself free and looking around to see if his contact with this ruffianly looking individual had been observed, 'you've taken a great liberty! I don't like it! Take care how you address me in future.' Then, with a last, outraged look, he reinflated his cheeks and bounced off quickly down the road.
Brodie gazed after him in some amazement. He failed to detect anything in his recent conduct which could have aroused indignation, and finally, with a shake of his head, he turned and resumed his way, reaching without further encounters the haven of the Wellhall Vaults. Here he was not known and he remained silent, but drinking steadily, filling himself with liquor and further visions of his daughter's prowess, until three o'clock. Then he got up, set his hat well back upon his head, drew in his lips and swaggered into the open once more.
The mere step to the Wellhall Green he accomplished with hardly a falter and soon he was inside the trim enclosure where the smooth square of reen lay vivid in the sunshine, marred only by the dark, blurred figures of the players wavering across it before his eye. What a game for grown men, he thought contemptuously; to roll a few balls about like a gang of silly bairns. Could they not take out a gun or a horse, like he had once done, if they wanted their exercise or amusement.
His gaze, however, did not remain long upon the green but, lifting quickly, sought the small group that sat upon the veranda of the pavilion at the further end of the ground, and he smiled with a sardonic gratification as he observed that, even as he had foretold, they were all there from simple John Paxton to the Lord High Provost of the Borough. He gathered himself together again and advanced deliberately towards them.
For a moment he proceeded unobserved by this small gathering for they were all concentrating upon the game before them but suddenly Paxton looked up, observed him, and gasped in amazement:
'Guidsakes Just look what's coming!' His tone drew their attention at once, and following his startled gaze, they too regarded the strange, uncouth, strutting figure as it bore down upon them, and they exclaimed variously:
'Good God! It's Brodie. I ha vena seen him for months!'
'He's as fou as a lord, by the looks o' him.'
'Losh! It's the drunken earl himsel'.'
'Look at the face o' him and the clothes o' him.'
'Ay, but look at the swagger o' the thing!'
They were silent as he drew near, directing their eyes away from him towards the green, disowning him, but still failing to perturb him as, oscillating slightly, he stood encompassing them with his sneer.
'Dear, dear,' he snickered, 'we're very engrossed in watching the wee, troolin' balls. It's a grand, excitin' pastime. We'll be lookin' on at a game o 1 peever next if we're not careful, like a band o' silly lassies.' He paused and queried pertinently, 'Who has won, Provost? Will ye tell me you that's such a grand spokesman for the town?'
'This game's not finished yet,' replied Grierson after a moment's hesitation, and still with his eyes averted. The spite which he had once entertained against Brodie now found nothing in the other's wretched condition with which to justify itself and seemed suddenly to have evaporated. Besides, was he not the Provost? 'Nobody has won yet,' he added more affably.
'This game's not won yet,' echoed Brodie sardonically. 'Well, well! I'm sorry to hear it. But I can tell ye a game that is won!'
He glared round them all and, his anger rising at their indifference, shouted:
'It's the Latta I'm talkin' about. Maybe ye think it's like this rotten game of bowls that you're watchin' not finished yet. But I tell you it is finished finished and done wi' and it's my Nessie that's won it!'
'Hush, man, hush!' exclaimed Gordon, who sat immediately confronted by Brodie. 'I can't see the play for ye. Sit down or stand aside and don't blatter the ears off us.'
'I'll stand where I like. Shift me if ye can,' retorted Brodie dangerously. Then he sneered : 'Who are you to talk, anyway? You're only the ex-provost you're not the king o' the castle any more it's our dear friend Grierson that's got your shoes on now and it's him I'm wantin' to speak to.' He directed his sneering gaze at Grierson and addressed him: 'Did you hear what I said about the Latta,
Provost? No! Dinna start like that I havena forgotten about that braw son o' yours. I know well that he's gone up for it. Provost Grierson's son is up for the Latta. God! It must be as good as in his pocket.'
'I never said that yet,' replied Grierson, provoked in spite of himself. 'My boy can take his chance! It's not as if he was needin' the money for his education, onyway.'
Brodie ground his teeth at the sharp implication in the other's careless words and tried fiercely to force his brain to contrive some devastating reply, but as always, when opposing Grierson, he could find no suitable expression of his wrath. The thought that he, who had advanced a moment ago in lordly indifference, had been rendered impotent by a word, goaded him, and, sensing also that he was not creating the impression upon them which he had wished, his temper overcame him and he shouted:
'Why did ye ask me to withdraw my daughter if ye didna want your whelp to win it? answer me that, you sneakin' swine! You stopped me at the Cross and asked me to keep back my Nessie.'
'Tuts! Don't shout like that at my ear, man,' retorted Grierson coolly. 'I don't like the reek o' your breath. I told ye before I was thinkin' of your Nessie. Somebody that's qualified to speak asked me to mention it to ye. I wasna wantin' to do it and now I'm sorry I did mention it.'
'You're a liar!' bawled Brodie. 'You're a damned mealy-mouthed liar!'
'If ye've come here to force a quarrel on me, I'll not let ye do it,' returned Grierson. 'There's no lying about the matter and no secret either. Now that your daughter has gone up, I don't mind tellin’ you it was Doctor Renwick asked me to speak to ye.'
'Renwick!' exclaimed Brodie incredulously. He paused; then, as a light dawned upon him, he shot out, 'I see! I see it plain. You put him up to it. He's hand in glove with you against me. He hates me just as much as do as much
