Part 12 (1/2)

”Oh, you perfectly horrid uncle! Thirty indeed! Are you not ashamed to add to the already intolerable burden of my years? Thirty! No, Sir, not by five good years at least! There now, you've made me tell my age! You ought to blush for shame.”

Her uncle patted her firm, round cheek. ”Never a blush, my dear! You bear even your advanced age with quite sufficient ease and grace. But now about this young Cameron,” he continued, a.s.suming a sternly judicial tone.

”All I ask for him is a chance,” said his niece earnestly.

”A chance? Why he will get every chance the law allows to clear himself.”

”There you are!” exclaimed Miss Bessie, in a despairing tone. ”That's the way the lawyers and your manager talk. They coolly and without a qualm get him arrested, this young boy who has never in all his life shown any sign of criminal tendency. These horrid lawyers display their dreadful astuteness and ability in catching a lad who never tries to run away, and your manager pleads the rules of the Bank. The rules! Fancy rules against a young boy's whole life!”

Her uncle rather winced at this.

”And like a lot of sheep they follow each other in a circle; there is absolutely no independence, no initiative. Why, they even went so far as to suggest that you could do nothing, that you were bound by rules and must follow like the rest of them; but I told them I knew better.”

”Ah!” said Sir Archibald in his most dignified manner. ”I trust I have a mind of my own, but--”

”Exactly! So I said to Mr. Dunn. 'Rules or no rules,' I said, 'my uncle will do the fair thing.' And I know you will,” cried Miss Brodie triumphantly. ”And if you look at it, there's a very big chance that the boy never did the thing, and certainly if he did it at all it was when he was quite incapable. Oh, I know quite well what the lawyers say. They go by the law,--they've got to,--but you--and--and--I go by the--the real facts of the case.” Sir Archibald coughed gently. ”I mean to say--well you know, Uncle, quite well, you can tell what a man is by--well, by his game.”

”His game!”

”And by his eye.”

”His eye! And his eye is--?”

”Now, Uncle, be sensible! I mean to say, if you could only see him. Oh, I shall bring him to see you!” she cried, with a sudden inspiration.

Sir Archibald held up a deprecating hand. ”Do not, I beg.”

”Well, Uncle, you can trust my judgment, you know you can. You would trust me in--in--” For a moment Miss Brodie was at a loss; then her eyes fell upon the grunting, comfortable old mother pig with her industrious litter. ”Well, don't I know good Wilts.h.i.+res when I see them?”

”Quite true,” replied her uncle solemnly; ”and therefore, men.”

”Uncle, you're very nearly rude.”

”I apologise,” replied her uncle hastily. ”But now, Bessie, my dear girl, seriously, as to this case, you must understand that I cannot interfere. The Bank--hem--the Bank is a great National--”

Miss Bessie saw that the Guards were being called upon. She hastened to bring up her reserves. ”I know, Uncle, I know! I wouldn't for the world say a word against the Bank, but you see the case against the lad is at least doubtful.”

”I was going on to observe,” resumed her uncle, judicially, ”that the Bank--”

”Don't misunderstand me, Uncle,” cried his niece, realising that she had reached a moment of crisis. ”You know I would not for a moment presume to interfere with the Bank, but”--here she deployed her whole force,--”the lad's youth and folly; his previous good character, guaranteed by Dunn, who knows men; his glorious game--no man who wasn't straight could play such a game!--the large chance of his innocence, the small chance of his guilt; the hide-bound rigidity of lawyers and bank managers, dominated by mere rules and routine, in contrast with the open-minded independence of her uncle; the boy's utter helplessness; his own father having been ready to believe the worst,--just think of it, Uncle, his own father thinking of himself and of his family name--much he has ever done for his family name!--and not of his own boy, and”--here Miss Brodie's voice took a lower key--”and his mother died some five or six years ago, when he was thirteen or fourteen, and I know, you know, that is hard on a boy.” In spite of herself, and to her disgust, a tremor came into her voice and a rush of tears to her eyes.

Her uncle was smitten with dismay. Only on one terrible occasion since she had emerged from her teens had he seen his niece in tears. The memory of that terrible day swept over his soul. Something desperate was doing. Hard as the little man was to the world against which he had fought his way to his present position of distinction, to his niece he was soft-hearted as a mother. ”There, there!” he exclaimed hastily.

”We'll give the boy a chance. No mother, eh? And a confounded prig for a father! No wonder the boy goes all wrong!” Then with a sudden vehemence he cried, striking one hand into the other, ”No, by--! that is, we will certainly give the lad the benefit of the doubt. Cheer up, la.s.sie!

You've no need to look ashamed,” for his niece was wiping her eyes in manifest disgust; ”indeed,” he said, with a heavy attempt at playfulness, ”you are a most excellent diplomat.”

”Diplomat, Uncle!” cried the girl, vehement indignation in her voice and face. ”Diplomat!” she cried again. ”You don't mean that I've not been quite sincere?”

”No, no, no; not in the least, my dear! But that you have put your case with admirable force.”

”Oh,” said the girl with a breath of relief, ”I just put it as I feel it. And it is not a bit my putting it, Uncle, but it is just that you are a dear and--well, a real sport; you love fair play.” The girl suddenly threw her strong, young arms about her uncle's neck, drew him close to her, and kissed him almost as if she had been his mother.