Brodie hung his head like a whipped schoolboy, wondering vaguely if it were Matthew's failure or the Winton Arms that lay in the background of Sir John's mind.
"You may have observed," continued Latta quietly, "that I have not patronised your establishment since the beginning of last year. That is because I heard then of an action of yours which I consider was both unjust and unmerciful. You behaved like a blackguard and a bully to your unfortunate daughter, Brodie, and though some might condone your act on grounds of outraged propriety, we can have nothing to do with you whilst you are under a stigma of this sort."
Brodie's hands clenched tightly and the frown deepened upon his pendent forehead. Latta, he thought bitterly, was the only person in Levenford who would have dared to address him like this, the only man, indeed, who could have uttered such words with impunity.
"I can do nothing," he said sulkily, restrained in his action only through a glimmering sense of his dependence upon the others good will. "It's all past and done with now."
"You can forgive her," replied Latta sternly. "You can promise me that she shall have refuge in your house if ever she might require it."
Brodie sat sullenly silent, his mind filled, not by Mary but, strangely, by the picture of Nessie. He must do something for her! It was, after all, easy for him to make an acquiescence of some description, and with his head still lowered and his eyes upon the carpet he blurted out,
"Very well, Sir John! It'll be as ye say."
Latta looked for a long time at the huge, lowering figure. He had at one time viewed Brodie, in the limited sphere of their mutual encounter, with the connoisseur's eye for the unusual; regarded him with appreciation as a magnificent mountain of manhood; smiled at his obvious conceit and tolerated, with a puzzled curiosity, his strange, bombastic and unfathomable allusions. He had observed him with the man of breeding's appreciation of a unique and eccentric specimen, but now he felt the other's presence strangely distasteful to him, thought him altered and debased, considered that some deeper explanation might exist of that bluff, yet pretentious assumption of dignity. Quickly he rejected the thought after all, the man had conceded his point.
"How can I help you then, Brodie?" he said seriously. "Tell me how you stand."
Brodie at last raised his head,, becoming aware that the interview had turned, though he knew not how, into the channel which he desired it to take.
"I've closed my business, Sir John!" he began. "Ye know as well as I do how I've been used by these" he swallowed and restrained himself "by that company that sneaked into the town and settled beside me like a thief in the night. They've used every low trick they could, stolen my manager from me; they've undercut me, sold rotten trash instead of honest goods, they've they've sucked the very blood
out o' me."
As memory stirred under his own words, his eye filled with self-sympathy and his chest heaved; he stretched out his arm demonstratively.
But Latta was somehow not impressed and raising his hand deprecatingly to stop the other, he remarked:
"And what did you do, Brodie, to combat these tactics? Did you branch out into new directions or or exert yourself more agreeably towards your customers?"
Brodie stared at him with a stupid, mulish obstinacy. "I went my own way," he exclaimed stubbornly, "the way I've always gone."
"I see," said Latta slowly.
"I fought them!" exclaimed Brodie. "I fought them like a gentle man and I fought fair. Ay, I would have riven them to bits with these two hands if they had shown the courage to meet me. But they skulked beneath me and how could I lower myself down to their level, the dogs?"
"And are you involved now in your affairs?" asked Sir John. "Are you in debt?"
"No!" replied Brodie proudly, "I'm not. I'm finished but I owe no man a farthing. I've bonded my house but, if I have nothing, I owe nothing. I can start fair, Sir John, if you've a mind to help me. That wee Nessie of mine must have her chance. She's the cleverest lass in Levenford. She's cut out for the bursary your own father founded if she only gets the opportunity."
"Why don't you sell that ridiculous house of yours?" considered Latta, impressed more favourably by the other's words. "It's too large for you now, anyway. Then you can clear your bond and start afresh in a smaller house with the balance."
Brodie shook his head slowly.
"It's my house," he said heavily. "I built it and in it I'll bide. I would
drag it down about my head sooner than give it up." Then after a pause he added sombrely, "If that's all ye have to suggest, I'll not take any more o' your time."
"Sit down, man," cried Latta. "You're as touchy as tinder." He toyed absently with his ruler, deep in thought, whilst doubtfully, uncomprehendingly, Brodie watched the quick passage of emotions over the other's face. At last Latta spoke. "You're a strange man, Brodie," he said, "and your mind puzzles me. I was of opinion, a minute ago, to let you whistle for assistance, but somehow I feel a drag upon me which I can't resist. I will make you an offer. Business is not for you now, Brodie. You are too big, too slow, too cumbersome. You would never succeed by opening up again in your own line, even if this were possible for you. You ought to be working with these great muscles of yours and yet I suppose you would consider that beneath you. But you can use a pen, keep books, reckon up figures. We might find a place for you here. As I say, I am making you an offer it is the most I can do you may refuse it if you choose."
Brodie's eye gleamed. He had known all along that Sir John would help him, that the strong tie of friendship between them must draw the other to help him, and help him royally; he felt that something large and important was looming near for him.
"Ay, Sir John," he said eagerly, "what do ye suggest? I'm at your disposal if I can assist ye."
"I could offer you," Latta continued evenly, "a position in the office as a clerk. It so happens that there is a vacancy in the wood department at this moment. You would have something to learn, yet, out of consideration for you, I would increase the salary slightly. You would have two pounds ten shillings a week."
Brodie's jaw dropped and his face crinkled into striped furrows of bewilderment. Hardly able to believe his ears, his eyes clouded with surprise and chagrin whilst the rosy visions which he had suddenly entertained of sitting in a luxurious room one such as this perhaps and of directing a bevy of rushing subordinates, faded slowly from his eyes.
"Think it over a moment," said Latta quietly, as he got up and moved towards an inner room. "You must excuse me just now."
Brodie strove to think. Whilst the other was out of the room he sat crushed, overcome by his humiliation. He James Brodie to be a clerk! And yet what other avenue than this could he possibly pursue. For Nessie's sake he must accept; he would take the wretched post but only only for the meantime. Later, he would show them all and this Latta more than any.
"Well," said Latta, coming into the office again, "what is it to be?"
Brodie raised his head dully.
"I accept," he said in a flat voice, and added, in a tone into which he strove to insert an inflection of satire, but which succeeded merely in becoming pathetic, "and thank ye."
Dazedly he saw Latta pull the bell beside his desk, heard him exclaim to the boy who instantly appeared:
"Send Mr. Blair to me."
Blair came, apparently as quickly and mysteriously as the boy, though Brodie hardly looked at the small, precise figure or gazed into the eye which outdid Sharp's in formal coldness. He did not hear the conversation between the two others, yet, after a period of time which he knew not to be long or short he felt himself being dismissed by Latta.