“How did you come?” asked Eunice, putting aside her own pain and anxiety, which must perforce wait for seven or eight weeks before it could be made into certainty of any kind. It was there all the time, but was pushed into the background for the sake of other people.
The old man took no notice of either of them, but sat with his eyes shut, while they moved softly to and fro between the stove and the table, until the daylight began to merge into the shades of night. Then the door burst open and the children trooped in, dragging Edgar Bradgate with them.
“I have unhitched all the horses, and, if you will permit me to shake down in the barn, I think it will be better for me not to attempt the journey on to Pentland Broads to-night,” he said, addressing himself in courteous tones to Bertha, after he had been duly presented to Eunice. “That horse of Mr. Humphries has done a heavy day’s work, and is rather the worse for it, and the pair are just about spun out. Where have they been driven from, do you know?”
But Bertha only shook her head with a warning glance at the old man, who seemed to be dozing in the corner, and then she said that she feared Mr. Bradgate would find it very uncomfortable in the barn.
“It is a decidedly more palatial lodging than I had at Brocken Ridge,” he answered cheerfully. “Why, the men in the State prisons are far more comfortably lodged than we were. Now, if you will give me the pail, I will go and milk. I have already fed the pigs and the poultry under the guidance of Dicky.”
“It is very kind of you,” said Bertha, but she accepted his services without any protest; for where there was so much to be done it was only fair that each one should take his or her part, and she was anxious to spare Eunice as much as she possibly could.
It was not until supper was ready on the table that the old man roused himself, and then he appealed to Grace, as the head of the household, to know whether he might stay there all night, because he felt too ill and worn out to go any farther.
Grace gave one swift, imploring look at Bertha, and, reading what she wanted there, answered, with sweet cordiality: “Why, yes, Uncle Joe, of course we shall be very glad to have you, and I hope that you will not find the children too noisy for your comfort.”
“Thank you, my dear niece, thank you,” he said, then sat with his head drooped forward as before, while Bertha watched him uneasily, for just so had he sat on that day in the train before he had been taken ill.
Then Edgar Bradgate came in, carrying the pail with the evening’s milk, and she went with him into the little pantry, which was also storeroom, to put it away, then when he came back with her they sat down to supper.