“There, there, Archie mon,” Mrs. MacHendrie was pleading, “come awa hame, do.”
Archie was declaiming on some wrong he had suffered and threatened to do for an enemy.
That these flowers and toadstools were of vital significance to Eppie, Gavan realized as she left him in the middle of the street and strode to the center of the group. It fell aside for her air of facile, friendly authority, and in answer to her decisive, “What’s the matter?” one of the apathetic onlookers explained in his deliberate Scotch: “It’s nobbut Archie, Miss Eppie; he’s swearin’ he’ll na go hame na sleep gin he’s lickit Tam Donel’. He’s a wee bit the waur for the drink and Tam’ll soon be alang, and the dei’ll be in it gar his gudewife gets him ben.”
“Well, she must get him ben,” said Eppie, her eye measuring Archie, who shook a menacing fist in the direction of his expected antagonist.
“We must get him home between us, Mrs. MacHendrie. He’ll think better of it in the morning.”
“Fech, an’ it’s that I’m aye tellin’ him, Miss Eppie; it’s the mornin’ he’ll hae the sair head. Ay, Miss Eppie, he’s an awfu’ chiel when he’s a wee bittie fou.” Mrs. MacHendrie put the fringe of her shawl to her eyes.
Archie’s low thunder had continued during this dialogue without a pause, and Eppie now addressed herself to him in authoritative tones. “Come on, Archie. Go home and get a sleep, at all events, before you fight Tom.”
“It’s that I’m aye tellin’ you, Archie mon,” Mrs. MacHendrie wept.
Archie now brought his eye round to the speakers and observed them in an ominous silence, his thoughts turned from more distant grievances. From his wife his eye traveled back to Eppie, who met it with a firm severity.
“Damn ye for an interferin’ fishwife!” suddenly and with startling force he burst out. “Ye’re no but a meddlesome besom. Awa wi’ ye!” and from this broadside he swung round to his wife with uplifted fists. Flinging herself between them, Eppie found herself swept aside. Gavan was in the midst of the sudden uproar. Like a David before Goliath, he confronted Archie with a quelling eye. Mrs. MacHendrie had slipped into the dusk, and the bald, ugly light now fell on Gavan’s contrasting head.