A farm-labourer came rushing wildly up the lane. “Don’t you go, Missey,” he cried. “A man’s hurt.”
“Who?”
“It’s Bill. The rick came down and the ridge-pole caught him across the back. He’s dead, I think. Leastwise, there’s not much life in him. I’m off for Doctor Strong!” He bent his shoulder to the wind, and lumbered off down the road.
“Poor Bill! Thank God it wasn’t father!” They were at the edge of the field now in which the accident had taken place. The rick lay, a shapeless mound upon the earth, with a long thick pole protruding from it, which had formerly supported the tarpaulin drawn across it in case of rain. Four men were walking slowly away, one shoulder humped, one hanging, and betwixt them they bore a formless clay-coloured bundle. He might have been a clod of the earth that he tilled, so passive, so silent, still brown, for death itself could not have taken the burn from his skin, but with patient, bovine eyes looking out heavily from under half-closed lids. He breathed jerkily, but he neither cried out nor groaned. There was something almost brutal and inhuman in his absolute stolidity. He asked no sympathy, for his life had been without it. It was a broken tool rather than an injured man.
“Can I do anything, father?”
“No, lass, no. This is no place for you. I’ve sent for the doctor. He’ll be here soon.”
“But where are they taking him?”
“To the loft where he sleeps.”
“I’m sure he’s welcome to my room, father.”
“No, no, lass. Better leave it alone.”