"I'll thank you not to mention that name again in my hearing."
Grierson manifested a great show of concern.
" 'Deed, I'm sorry if I've upset you, Mr. Brodie, but I had aye a bit regard for that lass o' yours. I was gey upset at her lang illness, but I had heard tell the other day that she had gotten a post away in London, and I was wonderin' if it was through these folks in Darroch the Foyles, I mean. Still, I've nae doubt ye ken as little as me."
He screwed up his eyes and glanced sideways at the other, as he continued:
"Ay, I took great notice o' the affair. In a human sort o' way, ye ken. I was real touched when the wee, bit bairn died in the hospital."
Brodie eyed him stonily, but the torture continued.
"They say it was a real bonny wean and the doctor was much upset when it slipped through his fingers. He took a great interest in the mother's case. I'm no' surprised either; it was so unusual, with the complications o' pneumonia and all." He shook his head mournfully.
"Man! What a calamity, though, that the father wasna' spared to make an honest woman o' ahem, ahem! Forgive me, Mr. Brodie! I clean forgot! I was just lettin' my silly tongue run away wi' me."
Grierson was abjectly apologetic. He had rubbed Brodie on the raw, made him wince, and was clever enough to know when to withdraw.
Brodie looked right through the other. Inwardly he writhed, but in a low, strained Toice he said,
"Let your mealy-mouthed tongue run on like the Wellhall burn; it makes no odds to me."
It was a mistaken attitude, for it immediately offered an opportunity to renew the baiting which Grierson was not slow to seize.
He laughed, with a soft, unctuous titter.
"That's richt, that's richt! That's the spirit that never flinches! I can't but admire ye, Mr. Brodie," he went on, "at the firm stand ye've taken amongst the disgrace o' it all. A man that had such an important standin' in the Borough might easily have been broken richt to bits by such a comedown, for there's no doubt that for months the whole town has been ringin' wi' it."
"The gabble of the Cross is of no moment to me," retorted Brodie, with a heaving breast. He could have killed the other with his glance, but he could, with dignity, use no other weapons, and his pride forbade him to retreat.
"Ay, ay," replied Grierson speculatively, "but it might shake up another man to be the butt o' a' these dirty divots, and the laughin' stock o' the place. Man!" he added, in a low tone, almost as an afterthought, "it would be enough to drive an ordinary man to the drink for consolation."
Brodie lowered at him from beneath his bushy eyebrows. Had they been calumniating him on that score, too? "Nothing like a wee droppie to cheer up a man, especially in this weather," drawled Grierson, in an insinuating tone.
"Well, I maun be off. It's cold work standin' bletherin'. Good day to you, Mr. Brodie." Grierson passed quickly out of range with meek, bowed head, without giving the other time to reply. Although he shivered from his stand in the freezing air, inwardly he warmed himself at a fire of delicious self-appreciation. He glowed at the thought of the quiver in Brodie's fierce eye as his delicately pointed barbs had sunk home, and feasted his recollection on the great, heaving sigh that the cumulation of their poison had finally produced. He
chuckled at the richness of the jest to relate at the club this evening; they would laugh till they burst at the story as he would tell it. He tee-heed to himself in anticipation. And why shouldn't he have lowered the stuck-up runt? What did he think he was, with his insolent, haughty airs? Besides, what man would have turned his own child out, like a dog, on such a night? It had been the death of the bairn. Ay, he had nearly killed Mary by it too, if reports were to be believed! Pneumonia, and child-birth fever, and God only knows what she
had suffered. It was scandalous, yes, even if she was a precious. He went on and out of sight, still hugging his reflection closely.
Brodie watched him down the road, his lips drawn into a thin, crooked line. That was the way of them, he thought. They would try to stone him, to kick him, to batter him to bits now that he was down. But, at the very idea, he drew himself up proudly. He was not down! Let them that suggested it wait and see. The whole, damnable business would have blown over, would be only dimly remembered, in another month or two. His real friends, the gentry, the big people of the district, must feel for him only sympathy and regret. But, at the memory of what he had endured, his tense lips quivered slightly.
All those weeks whilst Mary had lain between life and death at the Cottage Hospital, he had stood with the hard, craggy indifference of a rock, immovable in his determination to outcast his daughter. By her own act she had outlawed herself and he had proclaimed openly that he would let her rot beyond the bounds of decent society. Under the wordless wilting of his wife, under the loud-tongued gossip and hotly fluctuating opinion of the town, under the pressure of a biting, private interview with Doctor Ren wick, under the contumely of public affronts and reproaches, he had remained immutable and unyielding. He had not looked near her and the consideration of his inflexible resolution now soothed his ruffled spirit. But they did not know what he had suffered; the blow to his pride had been almost mortal. With a grim relief he diverted his thoughts to the solace which had comforted him through these bitter months, and he allowed his mind to dwell gloatingly upon the Tay Bridge disaster! He did not consider with any satisfaction the death of the bastard infant he had from the first disowned it but the thought of Foyle's broken body the pitiful remains of which had been recovered and now lay putrif ying in Darroch soil had rarely been out of his thoughts. It was the salve for his wounded arrogance. His imagination had riotously indulged itself amongst a host of vivid, morbid details. He did not care that a hundred others had perished; the loss of the entire train was but the instrument of a just vengeance. This one man had wronged him, had dared to oppose him, and now he was dead. It was a sweet consolation!
He was turning to go into his shop when he was again accosted. A little man, with all the restless timidity of a rabbit, had bolted out from next door to speak to him. It was Dron. Contempt marked Brodie's drawn features as he gazed at the jerky agitation of the other, and his self-assurance, restored always by an appreciation of the terror he could inspire in others, returned, whilst he surmised disdainfully the object of the little man's visit. Would he be going to tell him about the arrival of his brat? he wondered, as he noted the peculiar, suppressed look that marked him.
Dron's aspect was certainly remarkable, as, trembling with a repressed excitement, rubbing his hands rapidly together with a rustling sound, his pale eyelashes blinking ceaselessly, his legs shaking as though with tetanus, he essayed, stammeringly, to speak.
"Out with it, then," sneered Brodie, "and don't keep me on my own doorstep any longer. What species o' animal is it ye've been blessed wi' this time?"
"It's no exactly that," said Dron hurriedly, with a fresh spasm of fidgets. Then he added slowly, like one who has rehearsed it carefully, "I was just wonderin' if you were quite sure you didna want these premises o' mine I offered you last back end." He jerked his head in the direction of the empty shop. "You may have forgotten that you threw me out on the pavement that day, but I ha vena! I ha vena forgotten that ye flung me out on the broad o' my back." His voice rose in a shrill crescendo at the last words.
"Ye fell down, my little mannie, that was all. If ye chose to sit on your backside outside my place o' business I canna blame ye; but if it's no' as pleasant a position as ye might find, then talk to your wife about it. It's no affair o' mine," said Brodie calmly. Yet the other's eye fascinated him, pervaded as it was by two antagonistic emotions warring for supremacy, filled by such a look as might occupy the half- terrified, half-exultant eye of a rabbit that views an enemy caught in its own snare.