Perry returned, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. Strange young man that he was, he built his conceit only upon his imaginary powers and took no credit for the undoubted attributes of quickness and intuition which were actually his; though he had just achieved a triumph of diplomacy and tact, yet his sole feeling was a humble satisfaction that he had saved the customer for Brodie before the eyes of the august master himself. He glanced up deferentially as the other spoke.
"I didna know we gave away sweeties wi' our hats," was all that Brodie said, as he turned sombrely into his office.
The day had begun; and it wore steadily on, with Brodie remaining still shut up in his room, immersed in his own intimate thoughts. Across his stern face shadows drifted like clouds across the face of a dark mountain. He suffered. Despite the iron hardness of his will, he could not prevent his responsive ears from quickening to every sound, from anticipating the gradual halting of footsteps as they drew near his shop, from analysing the lightest noise without his office, as if to differentiate the entry of a customer from Perry's restless
pacings; yet, to-day, he felt that, though he had never before consciously noted them, the sounds were few and unsuggestive. The sun poured through the window upon him, the slush of the thaw which had succeeded the long frost was now completely gone, and the day was crisply dry, yet warm, so that in this dawning hint of spring the streets would, he knew, fill with people, happy, eager, thronging the shops; yet no chatter of enquiring voices broke the outer silence.
The blank, dividing wall which stood before him seemed to dissolve under his piercing gaze and reveal, in the premises next door, a bustling and successful activity. A reaction from his sneering confidence of the morning took him and he now morbidly visioned crowds of people jostling each other there in a passionate eagdness to buy. Savagely he bit his lip and again picked up his discarded paper in an effort to read; but in a few moments, to his annoyance, he returned to himself to find that he was gazing stupidly at the wall in front: as though it hypnotised him.
Moodily, he reflected how delightful it had been in the past to lie back in his chair for what else had he done with an eye through the half-open door, lording it over Perry and those who entered his domain. The menial duties of the business were entirely Perry's, who fetched and carried to his royal word, and he himself had not mounted the steps or lifted his hand to the shelves, or bound
up a parcel for longer than he could remember. Most customers he ignored; with some he would stroll in whilst they were being served, nod casually, pick up the hat under review, pass his hand over its nap or bend the brim in haughty approval of his own merchandise, saying with his air, "Take it or leave it, but ye'll not get a better hat anywhere." Towards only a few, a handful from the best families of the county, did he actually direct his personal service and attention.
It had then been so delightful to feel assured that people must come to him, for, in his blind autocratic way, he had scarcely realised, had not paused to consider, that the absence of competition and lack or choice might drive many people to him, that necessity might be the mainstay of his business; but now, as he sat alone, he became unhappily aware that, for the time being at least, his monopoly was at an end. Nevertheless he would not, he firmly determined, alter his conduct; if he had not been obliged to run after people to solicit their paltry custom, he would not now be coerced into so doing; he had run after no man in his life and he now swore a solemn oath that he would never do so.
The dim, early days of his beginning in Levenford, so long since that he had almost forgotten, returned mistily to him; but through these mists he saw himself as a man who had never curried favour, nor fawned, nor acted the subservient toady. Though there had been no Perry then, he had been upright and honest and determined, had worked hard and asked no favour. And he had succeeded. He glowed as he thought of his slow rise in importance and consequence, of his recognition by the Council, his election to the Philosophical Club, of the gradual conception of his house, of its building and, since that date, of the growing and subtle change in his situation to that unique, isolated, notable position which he now held in the town. It was, he told himself, the good blood that ran in his veins which had done that for him, which had brought him to the top, where he belonged, despite the handicaps which had beset him in his youth, that blood of his ancestors which as in a noble horse would always tell and which would not fail him now.
Waves of anger at the injustice of his present position swept in on him and he jumped to his feet. "Let them try to take it from me," he cried aloud, raising up his fist; "let them all come! I'll wipe them out like I destroy all who offend me. There was a rotten branch on the tree of my name," he shouted loudly, "and I cut it off. I'll smash everybody that interferes with me. I am James Brodie and be damned to everybody and everything. Let them try to hinder me, to thieve my trade from me, try to take all I've got; let them do it! Whatever comes, I am still myself."
He subsided in his chair, unconscious of the fact that he had arisen, unaware that he had shouted to the empty room, but hugging only, with a gloating satisfaction, that last precious thought. He was himself James Brodie no one but he understood, could ever comprehend, the full comfort, the delicious pride which that possession gave him. His thoughts rioted away from his present vicissitudes into a land of exalted dreams and longings, and, with his head sunk in his chest, he lost himself in the sublime contemplation of some future day when, unchecked, he would unleash the uncontrolled desires of his pride, when he would appease to satiation his craving for eminence and homage.
At last he sighed and, like a man awakening from the dreams of a drugged sleep, he blinked and shook himself. He looked at his watch, realised with a start that the end of this day, and of his self-ordained seclusion, was approaching. He arose slowly, yawned prodigiously, stretched himself, and, banishing from his features all traces of his recent indulgent reverie, stiffened his face again into a mask of hard indifference and went into the shop to review, as was his custom, the business of the day. This was invariably a pleasant duty, into which
he infused a lordly dignity, giving himself the air of a feudal ruler receiving tribute from his vassal. Always Perry had a heap of gleaming silver, often a few gleaming sovereigns and sometimes a rustling bank note to be transferred to the master's deep, hip pocket; and, when this had been effected, Brodie would run a casual eye over the list of sales casual, inasmuch as he recognised that Perry would never cheat him it would, in his own words "have been a pity for the little runt had he tried" would slap his bulging pocket, assume his hat and, with a last curt command, be off, leaving Perry to close up and shutter the shop.
But, to-night, an unusual air seemed to cling to Perry, giving him an aspect at once blurred and disconsolate. Usually he opened the cash drawer with a proud and subservient flourish, as though to say, "We may not be much, but this is what we've done for you to-day, Mr. Brodie, sir." Now, however, he pulled the drawer timidly open, with a faint deprecating twitch.
"A very quiet day, sir," he said meekly.
"The weather's been good," remonstrated Brodie testily. "What have you been playin' at? There's been plenty of folks about."
"Oh! There's been a stir on the streets," replied Perry, "but quite a number that's to say, a few have gone in " He faltered. "They had an attractive window," he concluded lamely.