Part 95 (1/2)

”'No,' says he, 'not a step,' says he. 'If she's dead,' says he, 'we'll only know it a day the sooner, and if she's in life, it'll be a disgrace to us the longest day we live.'”

”Aw, bolla veen, bolla veen!” said Nancy. ”When some men is getting religion there's no more inside at them than a gutted herring, and they're good for nothing but to put up in the chimley to smook.”

”It's Black Tom, woman,” said Grannie. ”Caesar's freckened mortal of the man's tongue going. 'It's water to his wheel,' he's saying. 'He'll be telling me to set my own house in order, and me a local preacher, too.'

But how's the man himself?”

”Pete?” said Nancy. ”Aw, tired enough last night, and not down yet....

Hus.h.!.+... It's his foot on the loft.”

”Poor boy! poor boy!” said Grannie.

The child cried, and then somebody began to beat the floor to the measure of a long-drawn hymn. Grannie must have been sitting before the fire with the baby across her knees.

”Something has happened,” thought Pete as he drew on his clothes. A moment later something had happened indeed. He had opened a drawer of the dressing-table and found the wedding-ring and the earrings where Kate had left them. There was a commotion in the room below by this time, but Pete did not hear it. He was crying in his heart. ”It is coming! I know it! I feel it! G.o.d help me! Lord forgive me! Amen! Amen!”

Caesar, the postman, and the constable, as a deputation from ”The Christians,” had just entered the house. Black Tom was with them. He was the ferret that had fetched them out of their holes.

”Get thee home, woman,” said Caesar to Grannie, ”This is no place for thee. It is the abode of sin and deception.”

”It's the home of my child's child, and that's enough for me,” said Grannie.

”Get thee back, I tell thee,” said Caesar, ”and come thee to this house of shame no more.”

”Take her, Nancy,” said Grannie, giving up the child. ”Shame enough, indeed, I'm thinking, when a woman has to shut her heart to her own flesh and blood if she's not to disrespect her husband,” and she went off, weeping.

But Caesar's emotions were walled in by his pietistical views. ”Every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or land, for My name's sake, shall receive an hundredfold,” said Caesar, with a cast of his eye towards Black Tom.

”Well, if I ever!” said Nancy. ”The husband that wanted the like of that from me now.... A hundredfold, indeed! No, not for a hundred hundredfolds, the nasty dirt.”

”Don't he turning up your nose, woman, but call your master,” said Caesar.

”It's more than some ones need do, then, and I won't call my master, neither--no, thank you,” said Nancy.

”I've something to tell him, and I've come, too, for to do it,” said Caesar.

”The devil came farther than ever you did, and it was only a lie he was bringing for all that,” said Nancy.

”Hould your tongue, Nancy Cain,” said Caesar, ”and take that Popish thing off the child's head.” It was the scarlet hood.

”Pity the money that's wasted on the like wasn't given to the poor.”

”I've heard something the same before, Caesar Cregeen,” said Nancy. ”It was Judas Iscariot was saying it first, and you're just thieving it from a thief.”

”Chut!” cried Caesar, goaded by the laughter of Black Tom. ”I'll call the man myself. Peter Quilliam!” and he made for the staircase door.

”Stand back,” cried Nancy, holding the child like a pillow over one of her arms, and lifting the other threateningly.

”Aw, you'll never be raising your hand to the man of G.o.d, woman,”

giggled Black Tom.

”Won't I, though?” said Nancy grimly, ”or the man of the devil either,”