On went Mrs. Shafto, still sadly and in silence, across the square grave-yard, and through the gloomy shop, with its small coffin open on the counter—a coffin that would have just fitted the dead baby she had kissed. Sandy followed her, his bare feet making no sound upon the floor; but he stopped at the door of the kitchen, for there was a strange person there—not his new friend, Johnny Shafto.
This person was a tall lanky man, about forty-five years old, whose thin long legs were stretched quite across the hearth, as though no one else needed to sit by the fire. He was lolling in the comfortable padded chair in the best corner, his hands hanging idly from his wrists, and his arms from his shoulders, as if he never had done and never could do one hearty task of work. His face was narrow and gloomy, with straight hair falling over it; and his head drooped as if he found it too much trouble to hold it upright. He looked up lazily as Mrs. Shafto went in, and spoke to her with a fretful voice.
"What a time you've been," he said, "gadding about on a Sunday evening on other people's business, and I've been wanting my tea this half-hour. Nobody asked me to stay at the school; I suppose they think nothing of me for being an undertaker, without any business either. If I had a thriving trade, and kept a mourning coach or two, it would be a different thing. They never seem to remember that I'm a Shafto, and my grandfather was their minister in his time. If my father had done his duty by me, they would have been ready enough, every one of them, to invite me to tea. Where have you been to, Mary?"
She was hastily taking off her bonnet and shawl before getting the tea ready, and now both her face and voice quivered as she answered.
"I've been seeing a sad sight," she said; "Johnny will have told you about the poor boy that has lost his sister? Well, him and me have been to a police station—a place I was never in before, and we've seen a poor dear dead little creature, no bigger than my Mary when she was taken from me; a poor murdered baby, and I cannot get the sight out of my head."
"You've got such a poor head," said Mr. Shafto, "always running on other folks. I dare say you never thought of mentioning that your husband was an undertaker, and had a coffin he could sell cheaply, and would bury it as reasonably as anybody in London; now did you?"
"I never thought of it," she answered.
"That's just what I say," he continued, triumphantly; "you never do remember things useful, when we've a child's coffin in stock. Why don't you shut that door?"
Mrs. Shafto stepped back to the doorway, and whispered to Sandy to sit down in the dark shop for a few minutes, till tea was ready. Then she shut him out of the bright little kitchen, and went softly up to her husband, speaking in a voice lower and unsteadier than usual.
"Dear John," she said, coaxingly, "it was our Johnny that brought yonder poor lad to our house. He's taken such a fancy to him, it would grieve him sorely if we turned our backs upon him. Maybe Johnny won't be spared to us much longer; and I could never forgive myself if I'd hurt him about anything. Besides, don't you remember, John—you that are such a scholar yourself, and your grandfather minister at the chapel—how the King says, when the Last Day is come, that He counts all we do for these poor creatures of His as if it were done to Him? It looks as if God had brought this boy and Johnny together, and we must not set ourselves against anything He does."