“Still, and for all the uprisement of Peter, it bates everything,” said Cæsar. “It's a sort of a resurrection. I thought I'd have a sight up to the packet for his chiss, poor fellow, and, behould ye, who should I meet in the two eyes but the man himself!”
“Aw, dear! It's wonderful I it's terrible! I'm silly with the joy,” said Grannie.
“It was lies in the letter the Manx ones were writing,” said Cæsar.
“Letters and writings are all lies,” said Grannie. “As long as I live I'll take no more of them, and if that Kelly, the postman, comes here again, I'll take the bellows to him.”
“So you thought I was gone for good, Grannie?” said Pete. “Well, I thought so too. 'Will I die?' I says to myself times and times; but I bethought me at last there wasn't no sense in a good man like me laving his bones out on the bare Veldt yonder; so, you see, I spread my wings and came home again.”
“It's the Lord's doings—it's marvellous in our eyes,” said Cæsar; and Grannie, who had recovered herself and was bustling about, cried—
“Let me have a right look at him, then. Goodness me, the whisker! And as soft as Manx carding from the mill, too. I like him best when he takes off his hat. Well, I'm proud to see you, boy. 'Deed, but I wouldn't have known you, though. 'Who's the gentleman in the gig with father?' thinks I. And I'd have said it was the Dempster himself, if he hadn't been dead and in his coffin.”
“That'll do, that'll do,” roared Pete. “That's Grannie putting the fun on me.”
“It's no use talking, but I can't keep quiet; no I can't,” cried Grannie, and with that she whipped up a bowl from the kitchen dresser and fell furiously to peeling the potatoes that were there for supper.
“But where's Kate?” said Pete.