The old man raised his red eyes. “They’ve not gi’ed their strength to the road, sir, as I have—” He threw out a hand. “The road’s had all o’ me.”
Simeon eyed him keenly, the bent look and worn shoulders. His glance traveled up and down the thin frame slowly.... Not an ounce of work left in him.
“We ’ve no place for incompetents,” he said, turning away.
Tomlinson made a step forward, as if he would touch him with his hands. Then he stood quiet. “There might be a boy’s place, sir—”
The man wheeled sharply, driven without and within—“I tell you we’ve nothing for you. You ’ve done your work. You ’ve had your pay. You ’re used up.” It was the biting truth and the old man shrank before it.
“I can’t spend any more time on you,” said the president of the road. He turned decisively to his desk.
For a moment Tomlinson stood with bent head. Then he raised his red-rimmed eyes, fixing them on the man before him. His right hand lifted itself significantly. “May the God in heaven curse ye, Simeon Tetlow, as ye have cursed me this day. May He shrivel ye, body and soul, in hell—” The words were shrill. “Curse ye—curse ye!”
He drew a step nearer, his eyes still on the other’s face.... Gradually a change seemed to come over him. The bent figure straightened itself. It towered above the president of the road, filling the little room. The chieftain of some mighty Highland clan might have stood thus, defying his enemy. His lifted right hand grew tense and flung itself, and a torrent of broad Scotch poured forth. Words of fire, heard in Tomlinson’s boyhood and forgotten long since, were on his tongue. The elemental passions were afire within him. Like the slow-burning peat of his native bogs, his soul, nourishing its spark through the years, had blazed forth—a scorching torrent. The words rolled on, a mighty flood, enveloping the man before him. Scathing tongues of flame darted at him and drew back, and leaped high—to fall in fiery, stinging showers on his head.
At the first words of the imprecation the president of the road had lifted his head with a little smile—almost of scorn—on his lips, as one might watch some domestic animal reverting to its ancestral rage. But as the broad Scotch rolled on—stem, implacable and sinister—the smile faded a little and the man seemed to shrivel where he stood, as if some fiery blast touched him. When he raised his head again, the look in his eyes was of cold steel.
He waited a minute after the voice had ceased, then he lifted his hand quietly. “You ’ve had your say, Tomlinson. Now I ’ll say mine—You leave this office and you leave the road. You ’ll never touch brake or throttle or switch on it again. You ’re not fit—do you understand!”