Charlie was absent an hour, and returned saying that he could not find his brother.
“Perhaps he's gone up to Varley as he did last time,” Mrs. Mulready said. “I am sure I hope he has, else he will be wandering about all night, and he had such a strange lock in his face that there's no saying where he might go to, or what he might do.”
Charlie was almost heartbroken, and sat up till long past his usual time, waiting for his brother's return. At last his eyes would no longer keep open, and he stumbled upstairs to bed, where he fell asleep almost as his head touched the pillow, in spite of his resolution to be awake until Ned returned.
Downstairs Mrs. Mulready kept watch. She did not expect Ned to return, but she was listening for the wheels of her husband's gig. It was uncertain at what time he would return; for when he rose from the tea table she had asked him what time he expected to be back, and he had replied that he could not say; he should stop until the repairs were finished, and she was to go to bed and not bother.
So at eleven o'clock she went upstairs, for once before when he had been out late and she had sat up he had been much annoyed; but after she got in bed she lay for hours listening for the sound of the wheels. At last she fell asleep and dreamed that Ned and her husband were standing at the end of a precipice grappling fiercely together in a life and death struggle. She was awaked at last by a knocking at the door; she glanced at her watch, which hung above her head; it was but half past six.
“What is it, Mary?”
“Please, mum, there's a constable below, and he wants to speak to you immediate.”
Mrs. Mulready sprang from the bed and began to dress herself hurriedly. All sorts of mischief that might have come to Ned passed rapidly through her mind; her husband had not returned, but no doubt he had stopped at the mill all night watching the men at work. His absence scarcely occasioned her a moment's thought. In a very few minutes she was downstairs in the kitchen, where the constable was standing waiting for her. She knew him by sight, for Marsden possessed but four constables, and they were all well known characters.
“What is it?” she asked; “has anything happened to my son?”
“No, mum,” the constable said in a tone of surprise, “I didn't know as he wasn't in bed and asleep, but I have some bad news for you, mum; it's a bad job altogether.”