"Guy Fawkes and good angels!" cried Mrs. Weekes. "Philip down! Push the pony along for the love of the Lord, Jar. Who's with him?"
"Mary runs in and out, and Susan, and Mrs. Taverner have been very kind."
"Poor lamb! poor helpless lamb!" said the wife.
Ever in extremes, she now poured forth a torrent of praise and extolled the immense virtues of Philip. She also dwelt on his practical value and her own imperishable affection and admiration for him.
"Such men go down to the grave with nobody but God Almighty and their wives to mark them," she said.
"'Twill be a case of 'Well done, thou good and faithful servant' if he goes. But it mustn't be. It shan't be!"
"He's not in the least danger, mother."
"Danger!—how can you dare to use the word? Oh, my God, to think of the staff and prop of my life tottering—and me not there! 'Danger'!—you ought to be a better son than to say it. Why for wasn't a telegram sent off? What do Mary know of sickness?"
Jarratt grunted.
"If she don't, she's a fool then. Another child coming and the first always got something wrong with it."