The Matador of the Five Towns and Other Stories Part 37

"A blanket?"

"Ay, lad! A blanket. Art struck?"

When Herbert returned with the blanket Silas was spilling mustard out of the mustard tin into a large zinc receptacle which he had removed from the slop-stone to a convenient place on the floor in front of the fire.

Silas then poured the boiling water from the kettle into the receptacle, and tested the temperature with his finger.

"Blazes!" he exclaimed, shaking his finger. "Fetch us the whisky, lad."

When Herbert returned a second time, Uncle Silas was sitting on a chair wearing merely the immense blanket, which fell gracefully in rich folds around him to the floor. From sundry escaping jets of steam Herbert was able to judge that the zinc bath lay concealed somewhere within the blanket. Si's clothes were piled on the deal table.

"I hanna' gotten my feet in yet," said Si. "They're resting on th' edge.

But I'll get 'em in in a minute. Oh! Blazes! Here! Mix us a gla.s.s o'

that, hot. And then get out that clothes-horse and hang my duds on it nigh th' fire."

Herbert obeyed, as if in a dream.

"I canna do wi' another heavy cowd [cold] at my time o' life, and there's only one way for to stop it. There! That'll do, lad. Let's have a look at thee."

Herbert perched himself on a corner of the table. The vivacity of Silas astounded him.

"Thou looks older, nephew," said Silas, sipping at the whisky, and smacking his lips grimly.

"Do I? Well, you look younger, uncle, anyhow. You've shaved your beard off, for one thing."

"Yes, and a pretty cold it give me, too! I'd carried that beard for twenty year."

"Then why did you cut it off?"

"Because I had to, lad. But never mind that. So thou'st taken possession o' my house?"

"It isn't your house any longer, uncle," said Herbert, determined to get the worst over at once.

"Not my house any longer! Us'll see whether it inna' my house any longer."

"If you go and disappear for a twelvemonth and more, uncle, and leave no address, you must take the consequence. I never knew till after you'd gone that you'd mortgaged this house for four hundred pounds to Callear, the fish-dealer."

"Who towd thee that?"

"Callear told me."

"Callear had no cause to be uneasy. I wrote him twice as his interest 'ud be all right when I come back."

"Yes, I know. But you didn't give any address. And he wanted his money back. So he came to me."

"Wanted his money back!" cried Silas, splashing about in the hidden tub and grimacing. "He had but just lent it me."

"Yes, but Tomkinson, his landlord, died, and he had the chance of buying his premises from the executors. And so he wanted his money back."

"And what didst tell him, lad?"

"I told him I would take a transfer of the mort-gage."

"Thou! Hadst gotten four hundred pounds i' thy pocket, then?"

"Yes. And so I took a transfer."

"Bless us! This comes o'going away! But where didst find th' money?"

"And what's more," Herbert continued, evading the question, "as I couldn't get my interest I gave you notice to repay, uncle, and as you didn't repay--"

"Give me notice to repay! What the dev--? You hadna' got my address."

"I had your legal address--this house, and I left the notice for you in the parlour. And as you didn't repay I--I took possession as mortgagee, and now I'm--I'm foreclosing."

"Thou'rt foreclosing!"

Silas stood up in the tub, staggered, furious, sweating. He would have stepped out of the tub and done something to Herbert had not common prudence and the fear of the blanket falling off restrained his pa.s.sion.

There was left to him only one thing to do, and he did it. He sat down again.

"Bless us!" he repeated feebly.

"So you see," said Herbert.

"And thou'st been living here ever since--alone, wi' Jane Sarah?"

"Not exactly," Herbert replied. "With my wife."

Fully emboldened now, he related to his uncle the whole circ.u.mstances of his marriage.

Whereupon, to his surprise, Silas laughed hilariously, hysterically, and gulped down the remainder of the whisky.

"Where is her?" Silas demanded.

"Upstairs."

"I' my bedroom, I lay," said Silas.

Herbert nodded. "May be."

"And everything upside down!" proceeded Uncle Silas.

"No!" said Herbert. "We've put all your things in my old room."

"Have ye! Ye're too obliging, lad!" growled Silas. "And if it isn't asking too much, where's that china pig as used to be on the chimney-piece in th' kitchen there? Her's smashed it, eh?"

"No," said Herbert, mildly. "She's put it away in a cupboard. She didn't like it."

"Ah! I was but wondering if ye'd foreclosed on th' pig too."