Plays of Henley and R.L. Stevenson | Page 5

to say 'Yes' when
he said 'No.'
LESLIE. Your father is trying to speak. I'll wager he echoes you.
MARY (TO OLD BRODIE). My poor dearie! Do you want to say
anything to me? No? Is it to Mr. Leslie, then?
LESLIE. I am listening, Mr. Brodie.
MARY. What is it, daddie?
OLD BRODIE. My son - the Deacon - Deacon Brodie - the first at
school.
LESLIE. I know it, Mr. Brodie. Was I not the last in the same class?
(TO MARY.) But he seems to have forgotten us.
MARY. O yes! his mind is wellnigh gone. He will sit for hours as you
see him, and never speak nor stir but at the touch of Will's hand or the
sound of Will's name.
LESLIE. It is so good to sit beside you. By and by it will be always like
this. You will not let me speak to the Deacon? You are fast set upon

speaking yourself? I could be so eloquent, Mary - I would touch him. I
cannot tell you how I fear to trust my happiness to any one else - even
to you!
MARY. He must hear of my good fortune from none but me. And
besides, you do not understand. We are not like families, we Brodies.
We are so clannish, we hold so close together.
LESLIE. You Brodies, and your Deacon!
OLD BRODIE. Deacon of his craft, sir - Deacon of the Wrights - my
son! If his mother - his mother - had but lived to see!
MARY. You hear how he runs on. A word about my brother and he
catches it. 'Tis as if he were awake in his poor blind way to all the
Deacon's care for him and all the Deacon's kindness to me. I believe he
only lives in the thought of the Deacon. There, it is not so long since I
was one with him. But indeed I think we are all Deacon-mad, we
Brodies. Are we not, daddie dear?
BRODIE (WITHOUT, AND ENTERING). You are a mighty
magistrate, Procurator, but you seem to have met your match.
SCENE II
To these, BRODIE and LAWSON.
MARY (CURTSEYING). So, uncle! you have honoured us at last.
LAWSON. QUAM PRIMUM, my dear, QUAM PRIMUM.
BRODIE. Well, father, do you know me? (HE SITS BESIDE HIS
FATHER AND TAKES HIS HAND.)
[OLD BRODIE. William - ay - Deacon. Greater man - than - his father.
BRODIE. You see, Procurator, the news is as fresh to him as it was
five years ago. He was struck down before he got the Deaconship, and
lives his lost life in mine.
LAWSON. Ay, I mind. He was aye ettling after a bit handle to his
name. He was kind of hurt when first they made me Procurator.]
MARY. And what have you been talking of?
LAWSON. Just o' thae robberies, Mary. Baith as a burgher and a
Crown offeecial, I tak' the maist absorbing interest in thae robberies.
LESLIE. Egad, Procurator, and so do I.
BRODIE (WITH A QUICK LOOK AT LESLIE). A dilettante interest,
doubtless! See what it is to be idle.
LESLIE. Faith, Brodie, I hardly know how to style it.
BRODIE. At any rate, 'tis not the interest of a victim, or we should

certainly have known of it before; nor a practical tool- mongering
interest, like my own; nor an interest professional and official, like the
Procurator's. You can answer for that, I suppose?
LESLIE. I think I can; if for no more. It's an interest of my own, you
see, and is best described as indescribable, and of no manner of
moment to anybody. [It will take no hurt if we put off its discussion till
a month of Sundays.]
BRODIE. You are more fortunate than you deserve. What do you say,
Procurator?
LAWSON. Ay is he! There is no a house in Edinburgh safe. The law is
clean helpless, clean helpless! A week syne it was auld Andra
Simpson's in the Lawnmarket. Then, naething would set the catamarans
but to forgather privily wi' the Provost's ain butler, and tak' unto
themselves the Provost's ain plate. And the day, information was laid
before me offeecially that the limmers had made infraction, VI ET
CLAM, into Leddy Mar'get Dalziel's, and left her leddyship wi' no sae
muckle's a spune to sup her parritch wi'. It's unbelievable, it's awful, it's
anti-christian!
MARY. If you only knew them, uncle, what an example you would
make! But tell me, is it not strange that men should dare such things, in
the midst of a city, and nothing, nothing be known of them - nothing at
all?
LESLIE. Little, indeed! But we do know that there are several in the
gang, and that one at least is an unrivalled workman.
LAWSON. Ye're