shutters were then carefully closed, and a fire quickly blazed brightly on the hearth. Bill then went away again, and in a quarter of an hour returned with Mary Powlett. He carried a bundle of rugs and blankets, while she had a kettle in one hand and a large basket in the other.
' Good-evening! Master Sankey,' she said as she entered. ' Bill has told me all about it, and I am sorry indeed for you and for your mother. It is worse for her, poor lady, than for you. You will soon be old enough to go out into the world if you don't like things at home; but she will have to bear what trouble comes to her. And now I thought you would like a cup of tea, so I have brought the kettle and things up. I haven't had tea yet, and they don't have tea at Bill's; but I like it, though feyther grumbles sometimes, and says it's too expensive for the likes of us in sich times as these; but he knows I would rather go without meat than without tea, so he lets me have it. Bill comes in for a cup sometimes, for he likes it better than beer, and it's a deal better for him to
be sitting taking a cup of tea with me than getting into the way of going down to the 'Spotted Dog,' and drinking beer there. So we will all have a cup together. No one will disturb us. Feyther is down at the 'Brown Cow;' and when I told the children I had to go out on special business they all promised to be good, and Jarge said he would see them all safely into bed. I told him I should be back in an hour.'
While Polly was speaking she was bustling about the room, putting things straight; with a wisp of heather she swept up the dust which had accumulated on the floor, in a semicircle in front of the fire, and laid down the rugs and blankets to form seats. Three cups and saucers, a little jug of milk, a tea-pot, and basin of sugar were placed in the centre, and a pile of slices of bread and butter beside them, while from a paper-bag she produced a cake which she had bought at the village shop on her way up.
Ned watched her preparations listlessly.
' You are very good, Polly,' he said, ' and I shall be very glad of the cup of tea, but I cannot eat anything.'
'Never mind,' she said cheerfully. 'Bill and I can do the eating, and perhaps after you have had a cup of tea you will be able to, for Bill tells me you have had nothing to eat since breakfast.'
Ned felt cheered by the warm blaze of the fire and by the cheerful sound of the kettle, and after taking a cup of tea found that his appetite was coming, and was soon able to eat his share. Mary Powlett kept up a
cheerful talk while the meal was going on, and no allusion was made to the circumstances which had brought Ned there. After it was done she sat and chatted for an hour. Then she said:
'I must be off now, and I think, Bill, you'd best be going soon too, and let Master Ned have a good night of it. I will make him up his bed on the rugs; and I will warrant, after all the trouble he has gone through, he will sleep like a top.'
'^fffitf 3 '
CHAPTER IX.
A PAINFUL TIME.
HEN Ned was left alone he rolled himself up in the blankets, placed a pillow which Polly had brought him under his head, and lay and looked at the fire; but it was not until the flames had died down, and the last red glow had faded into blackness that he fell off to sleep. His thoughts were bitter in the extreme. He pictured to himself the change which would take place in his home life with Mulready the manufacturer, the tyrant of the workmen, ruling over it. For himself he doubted not that he would be able to hold his own. ' He had better not try on his games with me,' he muttered savagely. ' Though I am only sixteen he won't find it easy to bully me; but of course Charlie and Lucy can't defend themselves. However, I will take care of them. Just let him be unkind to them, and see what comes of it! As to mother, she must take what she gets, at least she deserves to. Only to think of it! only to think of it! Oh, how bitterly she will come to repent! How could she do it!
'And with father only dead a year! But I must stand by her too. I promised father to be kind to her, though he could never have guessed how she would need it. He meant that I would only put up, without losing my temper, with her way of always pretending to be ill, and never doing anything but lie on the sofa and read poetry. Still, of course it meant I was to be kind anyhow whatever happened, and I will try to be so, though it is hard when she has brought such trouble upon us all.
'As for Mulready I should like to burn his mill down, or to break his neck. I hate him; it's bad enough to be a tyrant; but to be a tyrant and a hypocrite too, is horrible. Well, at any rate he shan't lord it over me;' and so at last Ned dropped off to sleep. He was still soundly asleep when Bill Swinton came in to wake him. It was half-past six, a dull October morning with a dreary drizzling rain. Bill brought with him a mug of hot tea and some thick slices of bread and butter. Ned got up and shook himself.
' What o'clock is it, Bill?'
'Half-past six; the chaps went off to t' mill an hour gone; oi've kept some tea hot for ee.'
' Thank you, Bill, my head aches, and so do all my bones, and I feel as if I hadn't been asleep all night, although, indeed, I must have slept quite as long as usual. Can't I have a wash?'
'Yes,' Bill said, 'thou canst come to our place; but thou hadst best take thy breakfast whilst it be hot. It ull waken thee up loike.'
Ned drank the tea and ate a slice of bread and butter, and felt refreshed thereat. Then he ran with Bill to his cottage and had a wash, and then started for the town. It was eight o'clock when he reached home. Abijah was at the door, looking down the road as he came up.
'Oh! Master Ned, how can you go on so ? Not a bit of sleep have I had this blessed night, and the mistress in strong hystrikes all the evening. Where have you been?' Ned gave a grunt at the news of his mother's hysterics— a grunt which clearly expressed ' served her right,' but he only answered the last part of the question.
'I have been up at Varley, and slept at the school-house. Bill Swinton and Polly Powlett made me up a bed and got me tea and breakfast. I am right enough.'
' But you shouldn't have gone away, Master Ned, in that style, leaving us to wait and worry ourselves out of our senses.'
' Do you know what she told me, Abijah ? Wasn't it enough to make any fellow mad ?'
' Ay, ay,' the nurse said. ' I know. I have see'd it coming months ago; but it wasn't no good for me to speak. Ay lad, it's a sore trouble for you, sure-ly a sore trouble for you, and for us all; but it ain't no manner of use for you to set yourself agin it. Least said sooner mended, Master Ned; in a case like this it ain't no good your setting yourself up again the missis. She ain't strong in some things, but she's strong enough in her will, and you ought to know by this time that what she sets her mind on she gets. It were so alius in the captain's time, and
if he couldn't change her, poor patient lamb—for if ever there were a saint on arth he was that—you may be sure that you can't. So try and take it quietly, dearie. It be main hard for ye, and it ain't for me to say as it isn't; but for the sake of peace and quiet, and for the sake of the little ones, Master Ned, it's better for you to take it quiet. If I thought as it would do any good for you to make a fuss I wouldn't be agin it; but it ain't, you know, and it will be worse for you all if you sets him agin you to begin with. Now go up and see your mother, dearie, afore you goes off to school. I have just taken her up her tea.'
' I have got nothing to say to her,' Ned growled.
'Yes, you have, Master Ned; you have got to tell her you hopes she will be happy. You can do that, you know, with a clear heart, for you do hope so. Fortunately she didn't see him yesterday; for when he called I told him she was too ill to see him, and a nice taking she was in when I told her he had been and gone; but I didn't mind that, you know, and it was better she shouldn't see him when she was so sore about the words you had said to her. It ain't no use making trouble aforehand, or setting him agin you. He knows, I reckon, as he won't be welcomed here by you. The way he has always come when you would be out showed that clear enough. But it ain't no use making matters worse. It's a pretty kettle of fish as it stands. No, go up, dearie, like a good boy, and make things roight.'
Ned lingered irresolute for a little time in the hall, and then his father's words, 'Be kind to her,' came strongly
in his mind, and he slowly went upstairs and knocked at his mother's door.
'Oh! here you are again!' she said in querulous tones as he entered, 'after being nearly the death of me with your wicked goings on! I don't know what you will come to, speaking to me as you did yesterday, and then running away and stopping out all night.'
'It was wrong, mother,' Ned said quietly, 'and I have come to tell you I am sorry; but you see the news was very sudden, and I wasn't prepared for it. I did not know that he had been coming here, and the news took me quite
