Mrs. Morel settled down to nurse. She prayed for William, prayed that he would recognise her. But the young man's face grew more discoloured. In the night she struggled with him. He raved, and raved, and would not come to consciousness. At two o'clock, in a dreadful paroxysm, he died.
Mrs. Morel sat perfectly still for an hour in the lodging bedroom; then she roused the household.
At six o'clock, with the aid of the charwoman, she laid him out; then she went round the dreary London village to the registrar and the doctor.
At nine o'clock to the cottage on Scargill Street came another wire:
“William died last night. Let father come, bring money.”
Annie, Paul, and Arthur were at home; Mr. Morel was gone to work. The three children said not a word. Annie began to whimper with fear; Paul set off for his father.
It was a beautiful day. At Brinsley pit the white steam melted slowly in the sunshine of a soft blue sky; the wheels of the headstocks twinkled high up; the screen, shuffling its coal into the trucks, made a busy noise.
“I want my father; he's got to go to London,” said the boy to the first man he met on the bank.
“Tha wants Walter Morel? Go in theer an' tell Joe Ward.”
Paul went into the little top office.
“I want my father; he's got to go to London.”
“Thy feyther? Is he down? What's his name?”
“Mr. Morel.”
“What, Walter? Is owt amiss?”
“He's got to go to London.”
The man went to the telephone and rang up the bottom office.
“Walter Morel's wanted, number 42, Hard. Summat's amiss; there's his lad here.”
Then he turned round to Paul.
“He'll be up in a few minutes,” he said.
Paul wandered out to the pit-top. He watched the chair come up, with its wagon of coal. The great iron cage sank back on its rest, a full carfle was hauled off, an empty tram run on to the chair, a bell ting'ed somewhere, the chair heaved, then dropped like a stone.
Paul did not realise William was dead; it was impossible, with such a bustle going on. The puller-off swung the small truck on to the turn-table, another man ran with it along the bank down the curving lines.
“And William is dead, and my mother's in London, and what will she be doing?” the boy asked himself, as if it were a conundrum.
He watched chair after chair come up, and still no father. At last, standing beside a wagon, a man's form! the chair sank on its rests, Morel stepped off. He was slightly lame from an accident.
“Is it thee, Paul? Is 'e worse?”
“You've got to go to London.”
The two walked off the pit-bank, where men were watching curiously. As they came out and went along the railway, with the sunny autumn field on one side and a wall of trucks on the other, Morel said in a frightened voice:
“'E's niver gone, child?”
“Yes.”
“When wor't?”
“Last night. We had a telegram from my mother.”
Morel walked on a few strides, then leaned up against a truck-side, his hand over his eyes. He was not crying. Paul stood looking round, waiting. On the weighing machine a truck trundled slowly. Paul saw everything, except his father leaning against the truck as if he were tired.
Morel had only once before been to London. He set off, scared and peaked, to help his wife. That was on Tuesday. The children were left alone in the house. Paul went to work, Arthur went to school, and Annie had in a friend to be with her.
On Saturday night, as Paul was turning the corner, coming home from Keston, he saw his mother and father, who had come to Sethley Bridge Station. They were walking in silence in the dark, tired, straggling apart. The boy waited.
“Mother!” he said, in the darkness.
Mrs. Morel's small figure seemed not to observe. He spoke again.
“Paul!” she said, uninterestedly.
She let him kiss her, but she seemed unaware of him.
In the house she was the same—small, white, and mute. She noticed nothing, she said nothing, only:
“The coffin will be here to-night, Walter. You'd better see about some help.” Then, turning to the children: “We're bringing him home.”
Then she relapsed into the same mute looking into space, her hands folded on her lap. Paul, looking at her, felt he could not breathe. The house was dead silent.
“I went to work, mother,” he said plaintively.
“Did you?” she answered, dully.
After half an hour Morel, troubled and bewildered, came in again.
“Wheer s'll we ha'e him when he DOES come?” he asked his wife.
“In the front-room.”
“Then I'd better shift th' table?”
“Yes.”
“An' ha'e him across th' chairs?”
“You know there—Yes, I suppose so.”
Morel and Paul went, with a candle, into the parlour. There was no gas there. The father unscrewed the top of the big mahogany oval table, and cleared the middle of the room; then he arranged six chairs opposite each other, so that the coffin could stand on their beds.
“You niver seed such a length as he is!” said the miner, and watching anxiously as he worked.
Paul went to the bay window and looked out. The ash-tree stood monstrous and black in front of the wide darkness. It was a faintly luminous night. Paul went back to his mother.
At ten o'clock Morel called:
“He's here!”
Everyone started. There was a noise of unbarring and unlocking the front door, which opened straight from the night into the room.
“Bring another candle,” called Morel.
Annie and Arthur went. Paul followed with his mother. He stood with his arm round her waist in the inner doorway. Down the middle of the cleared room waited six chairs, face to face. In the window, against the lace curtains, Arthur held up one candle, and by the open door, against the night, Annie stood leaning forward, her brass candlestick glittering.
There was the noise of wheels. Outside in the darkness of the street below Paul could see horses and a black vehicle, one lamp, and a few pale faces; then some men, miners, all in their shirt-sleeves, seemed to struggle in the obscurity. Presently two men appeared, bowed beneath a great weight. It was Morel and his neighbour.
“Steady!” called Morel, out of breath.
He and his fellow mounted the steep garden step, heaved into the candlelight with their gleaming coffin-end. Limbs of other men were seen struggling behind. Morel and Burns, in front, staggered; the great dark weight swayed.
“Steady, steady!” cried Morel, as if in pain.
All the six bearers were up in the small garden, holding the great coffin aloft. There were three more steps to the door. The yellow lamp of the carriage shone alone down the black road.
“Now then!” said Morel.
The coffin swayed, the men began to mount the three steps with their load. Annie's