The Complete Uncle Silas Stories Read Free Page B

at last. ‘God A’mighty, I’ll want summat after this.’
    Gradually, as I was putting the potatoes in the ashes under the fire, the arguments quietened a little, and finally my Uncle Silas stooped, half-knelt in the water and then with a brief mutter of relief sat down. Almost in silence, the housekeeper lathered the flannel she had made from her petticoat and then proceeded to wash his body, scrubbing every inch of it fiercely, taking no more notice of his nakedness than if he had been a figure of wood. All the time he sat there a little abjectly, his spirit momentarily subdued, making no effort to wash himself except sometimes to dabble his hands and dribble a little water over his bony legs. He gave even that up at last, turning to me to say:
    â€˜I never could see a damn lot o’ use in water.’
    Finally when she had washed him all over, she seized the great coarse towel that had been warming on the clothes-horse by the fire.
    â€˜You’re coming out now,’ she said.
    â€˜I don’t know as I am.’
    â€˜Did you hear what I said? You’re coming out!’
    â€˜Damn, you were fast enough gittin’ me in—you can wait a minute. I just got settled.’
    Seizing his shoulders, she began to try to force him to stand up just as she had tried to force him, only a minute or two before, to sit down. And as before he would not budge. He satthere luxuriously, not caring, some of the old devilish look of perversity back in his face, his hands playing with the water.
    â€˜He’s just doing it on purpose,’ she said to me at last. ‘Just because you’re here. He wants us to sit here and admire him. That’s all. I know.’
    â€˜Don’t talk so much!’ he said. ‘I’m getting out as fast as you’ll let me.’
    â€˜Come on, then. Come on!’ she insisted. ‘Heaven knows we don’t want to look at you all night.’
    The words seemed to remind my Uncle Silas of something, and as he stood up in the bath and she began towelling his back, he said to me:
    â€˜I recollect what I was going to tell you now. I was having a swim with a lot o’ chaps, once, in the mill-brook at …’
    â€˜We don’t want to hear your old tales, either,’ she said. ‘We heard ’em all times anew.’
    â€˜Not this one,’ he said.
    Nevertheless, her words silenced him. He stood there dumb and almost meek all the time she was towelling him dry and it was only when she vanished into the kitchen to fetch a second towel for him to dry his toes that he recollected the story he had been trying to tell me, and came to life.
    â€˜I was swimming with these chaps, in the mill-brook, and we left all our clothes on the bank …’
    â€˜Mind yourselves!’
    The housekeeper had returned with the towel, and my Uncle Silas, as though he had never even heard of the tale he was so anxious to tell and I was so anxious to hear, said solemnly to me:
    â€˜Next year I’ll have peas where I had taters, and taters where I had carrots …’
    â€˜Dry your toes!’ said the housekeeper.
    â€˜Dry ’em yourself and don’t talk so much!’
    At the same moment she thrust the towel in his hand andthen began to scoop the water out of the bath with an enamel basin and put it into a bucket. When the bucket was full she hastened out of the room with it, her half-laced shoes slopping noisily in her haste. Almost before she had gone through the door and long before we heard the splash of water in the sink my Uncle Silas said swiftly ‘Tot out,’ and I uncorked the wine-bottle while he found the glasses in the little cupboard above the fire.
    We were standing there drinking the wine, so red and rich and soft, Silas in nothing but his shirt, when the housekeeper returned. She refilled the bucket quickly and hastened out again. No sooner had she gone than he turned to me to continue the story, and