“Eh, lassie, why, what’s coom over ye?”
“What’s that on the ground?”
She almost shrieked this, guessing something.
“Ye’ve gotten too sharp eyes, lassie. Ye’d better not ask questions.”
“Barnabas, Oh!—Barnabas, it’s not—not—my father!” whispered the poor child, clinging, over the side of the cart, to the rough hands the farmer held out to her.
“Noa, lass, noa.”
“Who is it? Tell me, quick.”
“Why, lass, it’s a poor mon as—as has been hurt.”
“He’s dead. He wouldn’t be there, so still, like that, if he was not—dead,” she whispered. “Who is it? Tell me, Barnabas.”
“Weel, Ah have a noetion—that he’s soommet loike servant Blewitt, oop to Owdcastle Farm.”