Page:The White Peacock, Lawrence, 1911.djvu/64

56 “Do you know where he kept his papers?” asked my mother.

“Yis, I axed Father Burns about it; he said we mun pray for ’im. I bought him candles out o’ my own pocket. He wor a rum feller, he wor!” and again she shook her grey head mournfully. My mother took a step forward.

“Did ye want to see ’im?” asked the old woman with half timid questioning.

“Yes,” replied my mother, with a vigorous nod. She perceived now that the old lady was deaf.

We followed the woman into the kitchen, a long, low room^ dark, with drawn blinds.

“Sit ye down,” said the old lady in the same low tone, as if she were speaking to herself:

“Ye are his sister, ’appen?”

My mother shook her head.

“Oh—his brother’s wife!” persisted the old lady.

We shook our heads.

“Only a cousin?” she guessed, and looked at us appealingly. I nodded assent.

“Sit ye there a minute,” she said, and trotted off. She banged the door, and jarred a chair as she went. When she returned, she set down a bottle and two glasses with a thump on the table in front of us. Her thin, skinny wrist seemed hardly capable of carrying the bottle.

“It’s one as he’d only just begun of—’ave a drop to keep ye up—do now, poor thing,” she said, pushing the bottle to my mother, and hurrying off, returning with the sugar and the kettle. We refused.

“&thinsp;’E won’t want it no more, poor feller—an it’s good. Missis, he allers drank it good. Ay—an’ ’e