“Please, Muvver’s felled into the fire and frizzed—”
“What?”
Polly repeated her news among louder sobs.
“And Muvver said: ‘You go find Dokker’, and I comed.”
“You brave little thing!” cried Max; and, stooping, he lifted the baby-girl into his arms. “‘Dokker’s’ out, Polly,—at least, I’m afraid he is.” Max had missed the light from the Doctor’s sanctum. “But come on, and we’ll see.”
Max held Polly close, and ran, wondering meanwhile what tragedy had taken place in Lumber’s Yard. The yard was the poorest part of Woodend—a cluster of wretched cottages, the property, like most of the village, of Sir Arthur Fenn of Fencourt, the absentee lord of the manor.
“How did Mother get hurt?” inquired Max.
This query drew forth a rigmarole in baby-English, whence, by careful reasoning and shrewd deduction, Max gathered that Polly’s mother had rushed to the soothing of her youngest son, aged six months, had fallen across the wooden cradle and dropped against the grate. Whether or not the hurts were serious, of course the boy could not guess; but he knew the necessity for the speedy dressing of burns, and hurried on at his best pace.
To save time, Max avoided the front door, and darted round to the back—a region where Janet reigned supreme. The kitchen door opened right into the yard, and at the door stood Janet, scolding Tim the stable-boy, who ought to have been out with the Doctor. Tim played truant occasionally—just by way of remembering that he was a boy. At the workhouse, where he had been brought up, he never had attempted to be anything but elderly.
“Ah, Master Max,” cried Janet, “here you are, sir!—and here’s this young vagabond come back from his spree, which I’d make him pay dear for, if I’d my way—but there, the master—”