It seemed as if he had not caught the full meaning of her words; he only stared at her in a startled, bewildered fashion. “Cholera!” he repeated dully.
“Theer's them as knows it's cholera,” said Janner, with gloomy significance. “An' if it's cholera, it's death;” and he let his hand fall heavily upon the table.
“Ay,” put in Mrs. Janner in a fretful wail, “fur they say as it's worse i' these parts than it is i' England—th' heat mak's it worse—an' here we are i' th' midst o' th' summer-toime, an' theer's no knowin' wheer it'll end. I wish tha'd takken my advice, Janner, an' stayed i' Lancashire. Ay, I wish we wur safe at home. Better less wage an' more safety. Yo'd niwer ha' coom if yo'd listened to me.”
“Howd thy tongue, mother,” said Bess, but the words were not ungently spoken, notwithstanding their bluntness. “Dunnot let us mak' it worse than it need be. Seth, lad, eat thy breakfast.”
But there was little breakfast eaten. The fact was, that at the first spreading of the report a panic had seized upon the settlement, and Janner and his wife were by no means the least influenced by it A stolidly stubborn courage upheld Bess, but even she was subdued and somewhat awed.
“I niwer heerd much about th' cholera,” Seth said to her after breakfast. “Is this here true, this as thy feyther says?”
“I dunnot know fur sure,” Bess answered gravely, “but it's bad enow.”
“Coom out wi' me into th' fresh air,” said the lad, laying his hand upon her sleeve: “I mun say a word or so to thee.” And they went out together.
There was no work done in the mine that day. Two of three new cases broke out, and the terror spread itself and grew stronger. In fact, Black Creek scarcely comported itself as stoically as might have been expected. A messenger was dispatched to the nearest town for a doctor, and his arrival by the night train was awaited with excited impatience.
When he came, however, the matter became worse. He had bad news to tell himself. The epidemic had broken out in the town he had left, and great fears were entertained by its inhabitants. “If you had not been so entirely thrown on your own resources,” he said, “I could not have come.”