."

"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 passion.
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 circumstances 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."

"Possibly a few things are changed," said Herbert. "But you know when a
woman takes into her head--"

"Ay, lad! Ay, lad! I know! It was th' same wi' my beard. It had for go.
Thou'st under the domination of a woman, and I can sympathize wi' thee.