In a minute the work was thrown down, and the widow, closely followed by Elsie, was on the way to the schoolmaster's house, where Betsy told them Tom had been carried. By the time she got there, the village constable had also arrived to know the exact truth of the matter before going in search of Bill Crane. Others, too, had gathered round, so that there was quite a commotion outside when Mr. Murray and the curate came upon the scene.
"What is it; what is the matter?" asked the schoolmaster, seeing Mrs. Winn's white, scared face as she came up to the door.
"My boy! My boy!" she panted, pushing her way in without ceremony.
Tom heard his mother's voice, and managed to gasp out, "Mother, mother, I am sorry."
The revulsion of feeling on hearing Tom speak, although his voice was faint and husky, was almost too much for the widow, and she sank down upon a chair exclaiming, "Thank God, he is alive!"
Elsie was scarcely less overcome, but she managed to explain that it was Betsy Gunn who had been to tell them that he was dead.
"It was all through that wicked Bill Crane," said Mary, from her place near the window. "It was really only a boy's fight, you know; only your brother fainted, and I was afraid he was dead at first."
Elsie went and kissed Tom to assure herself that he really was alive, and not much hurt, and then she went over to the window to speak to the invalid.
"I am so sorry Tom should have given you such a fright," she said, for she had heard Mrs. Murray telling the curate that this shock would be sure to make Mary worse. "I hope you will not really be ill through it," she added.
"Oh, it does not much matter, a little more or less illness, when one is so useless as I am," said the girl; but she allowed Elsie to hold her thin, white hand in her strong, capable one, and the contact of the warm fingers seemed to please her, and she said, "Let me hold your hand a minute; I like to feel hands like yours—they seem to do me good."