“It’s a paper wid writin’ onto it, darlint, and one as it wudn’t be o’ no use at all at all to take,” he explained; “not till me nor the gintleman I was spakin’ av, though mabbe it moight fer the folks it’s drawed against.”
“Would you know it if you saw it?”
“Sorra a bit, jewel, but ye wad; ye can rade writin’.”
“Yes; but I tell you I don’t know what sort of a thing it is.”
“Somethin’ loike this jist—tellin’ that money’s owed on the farm, an’ if it ain’t paid by sich a toime, the feller what holds the margage can sell ’em out and git his money.”
“Then anybody that had the paper could do that, couldn’t he?” she asked, with increasing interest.
“No, not if he stole it, the gintleman tould me; the writin’s got to be fixed to suit, wid the roight name ontil it. He’ll be afther buyin’ it, I belave, whin he foinds out all about it; an’ he’ll pay me a purty penny if I foind out an’ let him intil the sacret.”
“But what made him think it was here?”
“Well, a friend o’ his’n see the ould man over there, an’ somethin’ put it intil her head as it moight be he wuz afther money, the folks seemin’ kind o’ distressed loike.”
Mr. Himes’s return broke off the conversation, but it was renewed by Phelim at the first opportunity, and at length Belinda was prevailed upon to promise to make an examination of her husband’s papers if she could in any way manage to get possession of the key to the strong box in which they were kept. This key he carried on his person during the day and put carefully under his pillow at night. She had never been permitted to touch it, nor did it seem likely she ever would be.