but it’s ‘is leg somewhere. They ta’ein’ ‘im ter th”ospital.”

“Good gracious me!” she exclaimed. “Eh, dear, what a one he is! There’s not five minutes of peace, I’ll be hanged if there is! His thumb’s nearly better, and now—Did you see him?”

“I seed him at th’ bottom. An’ I seed‘em bring’im up in a tub, an’

‘e wor in a dead faint. But he shouted like anythink when Doctor Fraser examined him i’ th’ lamp cabin—an’ cossed an’ swore, an’ said as ’e wor goin’ to be ta‘en whoam—’e worn’t goin’ ter th“ospital.”

The boy faltered to an end.

“He would want to come home, so that I can have all the bother. Thank you, my lad. Eh, dear, if I’m not sick—sick and surfeited, I am!”

She came downstairs. Paul had mechanically resumed his painting.

“And it must be pretty bad if they’ve taken him to the hospital,” she went on. “But what a careless creature he is! Other men don’t have all these accidents. Yes, he would want to put all the burden on me. Eh, dear, just as we were getting easy a bit at last. Put those things away, there’s no time to be painting now. What time is there a train? I know I s’ll have to go trailing to Keston. I s’ll have to leave that bedroom.”

“I can finish it,” said Paul.

“You needn’t. I shall catch the seven o’clock back, I should think. Oh, my blessed heart, the fuss and commotion he’ll make! And those granite settscc at Tinder Hill—he might well call them kidney pebbles—they’ll jolt him almost to bits. I wonder why they can’t mend them, the state they’re in, an’ all the men as go across in that ambulance. You’d think they’d have a hospital here. The men bought the ground, and, my sirs, there’d be accidents enough to keep it going. But no, they must trail them ten miles in a slow ambulance to Nottingham. It’s a crying shame! Oh, and the fuss he’ll make! I know he will! I wonder who’s with him. Barker, I s’d think. Poor beggar, he’ll wish himself anywhere rather. But he’ll look after him, I know. Now there’s no telling how long he’ll be stuck in that hospital—and won’t he hate it! But if it’s only his leg it’s not so bad.”

All the time she was getting ready. Hurriedly taking off her bodice, she crouched at the boiler while the water ran slowly into her lading-can.

“I wish this boiler was at the bottom of the sea!” she exclaimed, wriggling the handle impatiently. She had very handsome, strong arms, rather surprising on a smallish woman.

Paul cleared away, put on the kettle, and set the table.

“There isn’t a train till four-twenty,” he said. “You’ve time enough.”

“Oh no, I haven’t!” she cried, blinking at him over the towel as she wiped her face.

“Yes, you have. You must drink a cup of tea at any rate. Should I come with you to Keston?”

“Come with me? What for, I should like to know? Now, what have I to take him? Eh, dear! His clean shirt—and it’s a blessing it is clean. But it had better be aired. And stockings—he won’t want them—and a towel, I suppose; and handkerchiefs. Now what else?”

“A comb, a knife and fork and spoon,” said Paul. His father had been in the hospital before.

“Goodness knows what sort of state his feet were in,” continued Mrs. Morel, as she combed her long brown hair, that was fine as silk, and was touched now with grey. “He’s very particular to wash himself to the waist, but below he thinks doesn’t matter. But there, I suppose they see plenty like it.”

Paul had laid the table. He cut his mother one or two pieces of very thin bread and butter.

“Here you are,” he said, putting her cup of tea in her place.

“I can’t be bothered!” she exclaimed crossly.

“Well, you’ve got to, so there, now it’s put out ready,” he insisted.

So she sat down and sipped her tea, and ate a little, in silence. She was thinking.

In a few minutes she was gone, to walk the two and a half miles to Keston Station. All the things she was taking him she had in her bulging string bag. Paul watched her go up the road between the hedges—a little, quick-stepping figure, and his heart ached for her, that she was thrust forward again into pain and trouble. And she, tripping so quickly in her anxiety, felt at the back of her her son’s heart waiting