"It's bad enough," she replied.
"What?"
She sighed and sat down, undoing her bonnet-strings. Her son watched her
face as it was lifted, and her small, work-hardened hands fingering at
the bow under her chin.
"Well," she answered, "it's not really dangerous, but the nurse says
it's a dreadful smash. You see, a great piece of rock fell on his
leg--here--and it's a compound fracture. There are pieces of bone
sticking through--"
"Ugh--how horrid!" exclaimed the children.
"And," she continued, "of course he says he's going to die--it wouldn't
be him if he didn't. 'I'm done for, my lass!' he said, looking at me.
'Don't be so silly,' I said to him. 'You're not going to die of a broken
leg, however badly it's smashed.' 'I s'll niver come out of 'ere but in
a wooden box,' he groaned. 'Well,' I said, 'if you want them to carry
you into the garden in a wooden box, when you're better, I've no doubt
they will.' 'If we think it's good for him,' said the Sister. She's an
awfully nice Sister, but rather strict."
Mrs. Morel took off her bonnet. The children waited in silence.
"Of course, he IS bad," she continued, "and he will be. It's a great
shock, and he's lost a lot of blood; and, of course, it IS a very
dangerous smash. It's not at all sure that it will mend so easily. And
then there's the fever and the mortification--if it took bad ways he'd
quickly be gone. But there, he's a clean-blooded man, with wonderful
healing flesh, and so I see no reason why it SHOULD take bad ways. Of
course there's a wound--"
She was pale now with emotion and anxiety. The three children realised
that it was very bad for their father, and the house was silent,
anxious.
"But he always gets better," said Paul after a while.
"That's what I tell him," said the mother.
Everybody moved about in silence.
"And he really looked nearly done for," she said. "But the Sister says
that is the pain."
Annie took away her mother's coat and bonnet.
"And he looked at me when I came away! I said: 'I s'll have to go now,
Walter, because of the train--and the children.' And he looked at me. It
seems hard."
Paul took up his brush again and went on painting. Arthur went outside
for some coal. Annie sat looking dismal. And Mrs. Morel, in her little
rocking-chair that her husband had made for her when the first baby was
coming, remained motionless, brooding. She was grieved, and bitterly
sorry for the man who was hurt so much. But still, in her heart of
hearts, where the love should have burned, there was a blank. Now, when
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