"My son's in Londing, and I'll thenk y' not t' call 'im names," said Mrs. Narby hotly. "He's a genius, and 'ave gone to git 'is poetry inter print, so there."
"An' wha's gain' tae publish his doggrel?"
"'Imself!" snapped the landlady sulkily.
"An' where's the siller comin' frae?"
Mrs. Narby put her arms akimbo in her favourite attitude and stormed in her old style.
"I guve it 'im, d'y' see," she cried furiously, "y' think I carn't do wot I likes with m' own? Me an' Narby 'ave come in for a legacy, and we're a-goin' t' giv h'up th' inn an' go t' th' Staits, where Narby wos reared. Pope's comin' too, arter he 'as 'is verse brought h'out. So there, an' I don' want any of yer sauce, though yer are the father-in-lawr of thet cove es murdered Sir Simon, es I believe he did."
"Wumon!"
"Don't call me naimes, or I'll scretch th' h'eyes h'out o' yer 'ead; an' there's Allus callin' in the kitching," and Mrs. Narby hurried away, leaving Gowrie full of thought.
He obtained a glass of whisky from Alice, the miserable maid-of-all-work, who had stepped into Elspeth's place, and sat down on the tap-room settle to smoke and think. Outside the rain was falling heavily, and there was the usual grey mist over the marshes. But the room was warm, and the fire burned brightly. Mr. Gowrie approved of the whisky, and the pipe soothed his nerves, which had been rather upset by Mrs. Narby's sudden wrath. With his glass in his gouty old hand, and his pipe in his mouth, he sat staring at the driftwood fire, thinking a lot, after the fashion of the celebrated parrot.
Two things struck him as strange. First, that Mrs. Narby should have so suddenly lost her temper with a man whom she apparently desired to propitiate; and second, that she--or Narby--should have so unexpectedly inherited a legacy. If she really had money it was quite natural that she should have let Pope go to London to publish his poetry, for the virago adored her son, even though she did not understand his writing. But where had Mrs. Narby got that money? Gowrie, in his frequent visits, had learned a lot about Narby's past life in the States; but he had never heard that the Anglo-American expected a legacy. Indeed, Mrs. Narby, on one occasion, had said that neither herself nor her husband were bothered with relatives. It was queer that the money should come to them so suddenly, and from an unknown source. Equally queer that the pair should decide to seek America and give up the inn. Certainly the inn had been doing better business than ever, since the murder, owing to the morbid curiosity of visitors, so it was odd, to say the least of it, that at such a moment, a money-making concern should be given up.