Part 5. Man And Man - Chapter 5

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_ PART V. MAN AND MAN
CHAPTER V

Caesar called next day and took Pete to the office of the High Bailiff, where the business of the mortgage was completed. The deeds of Ballawhaine were then committed to Caesar's care for custody and safe keeping, and he carried them off to his safe at the mill with a long stride and a face of fierce triumph.

"The ould Ballawhaine is dying," he thought; "and if we kick out the young one some day, it'll only be the Lord's hand on a rascal."

On drawing his big cheque, Pete had realised that, with reckless spending, and more reckless giving, he had less than a hundred pounds to his credit. "No matter," he thought; "Philip will pay me back when he comes in to his own."

Grannie was with Nancy at Elm Cottage when Pete returned home. The child was having its morning bath, and the two women were on their knees at either side of the tub, cackling and crowing like two old hens over one egg.

"Aw, did you _ever_, now, Nancy? 'Deed, no; you never _did_ see such a lil angel. Up-a-daisy!"

"Cry I must, Grannie, when I see it looking so beautiful. Warm towels, you say? I'm a girl of this sort--when I get my heart down, I can never get it up again. Fuller's earth, is it? Here, then."

"Boo--loo--loo! the bog millish! Nancy, we must be shortening her soon."

And with that they fell to an earnest council on frocks and petticoats, and other mysteries unread by man. Pete sat and watched and listened. "People will be crying shame on her if they see the Grannie doing everything," he thought.

That night he lounged through the town and examined the shop windows out of the corner of his eye. He was trying to bear himself like a workman enjoying his Saturday night's ramble in clean clothes, but the streets were thronged, and he found himself observed. "Not here," he told himself. "I can buy nothing here. Doesn't do to be asleep at all, and a man isn't always in bed when he's sleeping."

Some hours later, Nancy and the child being upstairs, Pete bethought himself of something that was kept at the bottom of a drawer. Going to the drawer to open it, he found it stiff to his tugging, and it came back with a jerk, which showed it had not lately been disturbed. Pete found what he looked for, and came upon something beside. It was a cardboard box, tied about with a string, which was knotted in a peculiar way. "Kate's knot," thought Pete with a sigh. He slipped it, and opened the lid and took out a baby's hood of scarlet plush. "The very thing," he thought. He held it, mouth open, over his big brown hand, and laughed with delight. "She's been buying it for the child and never using it." His eyes glistened. "The _very_ thing," he thought, and then he took down pen and paper to write something to go with it.

This is what he wrote--

"For lil Katerin from her Luvin mother"

Then he held it at arm's length and looked at it. The subscription crossed the whole face of a half-sheet of paper. But the triumphant success of his former effort had made him bold. He could not resist the temptation to write more. So he turned the paper over and wrote on the back--

"tell pa pa not to wurry about me i aspect to be home sune but dont no ezactly"

His eyes were swimming by the time he got that down, but they brightened again as he remembered something.

"Weve had grate times ear uncle Jo--"

"Must go on milking that ould cow," he thought

"tuk me to sea the prins of Wales yesterda"

He could not help it--he began to take a wild joy in his own inventions.

"flags and banns of musick all day and luminerashuns all night it was grand we were top of an umnibuss goin down lord strete and saw him as plane as plane"

"Bless me," said Pete, dropping his pen, and rubbing his hands in ravishing contemplation of his own fiction; "the next thing we hear she'll be riding in her carriage and' pair."

He was sobbing a little, for all that, in a low, smothered way, but he could not deny himself one word more--

"luv to all enquirin frens and bess respecs to the Dempster if im not forgot at him."

This second forgery of love being finished, he went about the house on tiptoe, found brown paper and twine, put the hood back into the box with his half-sheet peeping from between the frills where the little face would go, and made it up, with his undeft fingers, into an ungainly parcel, which he addressed to himself as before. After that he did his accustomed duty with the lamp and the door, and lay down in the parlour to sleep.

On Monday, at dinner, he broke out peevishly with "Ter'ble botheration, Nancy--I must be going to Port St. Mary about that thundering demonstration."

Then from underneath the sofa in the parlour he rooted up a brown paper parcel, stuffed it under his coat, buttoned it up, and so smuggled it out of the house. _

Read next: Part 5. Man And Man: Chapter 6

Read previous: Part 5. Man And Man: Chapter 4

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