"He says he's run away," replied the mother.
"Where to?"
"Eh, I don't know. He's taken a bundle in the blue handkerchief, and
says he's not coming back."
"What shall we do?" cried the boy.
"Eh, never trouble, he won't go far."
"But if he doesn't come back," wailed Annie.
And she and William retired to the sofa and wept. Mrs. Morel sat and
laughed.
"You pair of gabeys!" she exclaimed. "You'll see him before the night's
out."
But the children were not to be consoled. Twilight came on. Mrs. Morel
grew anxious from very weariness. One part of her said it would be a
relief to see the last of him; another part fretted because of keeping
the children; and inside her, as yet, she could not quite let him go. At
the bottom, she knew very well he could NOT go.
When she went down to the coal-place at the end of the garden, however,
she felt something behind the door. So she looked. And there in the dark
lay the big blue bundle. She sat on a piece of coal and laughed. Every
time she saw it, so fat and yet so ignominious, slunk into its corner in
the dark, with its ends flopping like dejected ears from the knots, she
laughed again. She was relieved.
Mrs. Morel sat waiting. He had not any money, she knew, so if he stopped
he was running up a bill. She was very tired of him--tired to death. He
had not even the courage to carry his bundle beyond the yard-end.
As she meditated, at about nine o'clock, he opened the door and came in,
slinking, and yet sulky. She said not a word. He took off his coat, and
slunk to his armchair, where he began to take off his boots.
"You'd better fetch your bundle before you take your boots off," she
said quietly.
"You may thank your stars I've come back to-night," he said, looking up
from under his dropped head, sulkily, trying to be impressive.
"Why, where should you have gone? You daren't even get your parcel
through the yard-end," she said.
He looked such a fool she was not even angry with him. He continued to
take his boots off and prepare for bed.
"I don't know what's in your blue handkerchief," she said. "But if you
leave it the children shall fetch it in the morning."
Whereupon he got up and went out of the house, returning presently and
crossing the kitchen with averted face, hurrying upstairs. As Mrs. Morel
saw him slink quickly through the inner doorway, holding his bundle, she
laughed to herself: but her heart was bitter, because she had loved him.
CHAPTER III
THE CASTING OFF OF MOREL--THE TAKING ON OF WILLIAM
DURING the next week Morel's temper was almost unbearable. Like all
<<BackPagesTo menuForward>>