What do you think?
Rate this book
797 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1931
Brodie ate hungrily and with obvious enjoyment. He was an enormous man, over six feet in height and with the shoulders and neck of a bull. His head was massive, his grey eyes small and deep set, his jaw hard and so resolutely muscular that as he chewed, large firm knobs rose up and subsided rhythmically under the smooth brown jowl. The face itself was broad and strong and would have been noble but for the insufficient depth of the forehead and the narrow spacing of the eyes. A heavy brown moustache covered his upper lip, partly hiding the mouth; but beneath this glossy mask his lower lip protruded with a full and sullen arrogance.
‘Ay,� sighed the first draughts player at last, ‘he has an unco� temper. His pride is fair terrifyin� now. It’s his worst enemy. He used no� to be so conspicuous in that respect, but of late years it’s fair run awa� wi� him. He’s as proud as Lucifer.�
…but to-day he did not speak, tapping along with his thick ash stick, his coat sagging upon him, his square hat, faded and unbrushed, thrust back in a painful caricature of his old-time arrogance, marching silently and apart, with an air of inward absorption which made it impossible for her to speak to him.