“Dear, dear, I’ll bring him a—a—well, mother, what’ll I take him? He’s such a great man ’twouldn’t do to fetch him a cheese or eggs or a fowl, now would it?”
“That’s so, father,” replied Barbara reflectively. “Aye, he’s a great man an’ ’twouldn’t do, whatever. I have it, dad, we’ll be buyin’ him books in Liverpool.”
“Good, so we will, mam, as many books as we can afford.” And Samuel thrust his hands still further into his pockets, pursed out his lips, spread his legs apart, and contemplated the fire earnestly. “Aye, mother, books is the very thing; the lad’ll be more’n pleased to have them an’ to think I thought of them.”
“Aye, that’s so, dearie.”
“Well, I’ll be goin’ now; we’ll have to be makin’ haste to have all done in six weeks, an’ we’ll go, mother, we’ll go if we can afford it.”
Samuel strode out of the room; he was over seventy, but he walked with youthful elation; indeed, in some marked fashion, despite white hair, wrinkled skin, and limbs that were beginning to bend with years, he was still a boy.
Barbara looked after him, sighing wistfully as he left the room. “It seems a bit like bein’ young once more, a bit like old times.” She caught her side again. “This stitch is worse than common. Aye, dearie, I was unjust to ye the mornin’, an’ I’m a bad old woman.”
When Samuel came in for supper, he found Barbara lying down. Nothing was the matter, she assured him, “just a stitch worse than common, aye, an’ they’d be goin’ to Liverpool the same.” But as the night wore on it grew worse still, and by morning she was a very sick woman, suffering what even his man’s eyes could see was intense pain. The old cheeks had shrunk in the night, the face blanched to an ashen gray; only the eyes remained unchanged and shone sweetly and serenely upon him.
The physician was sent for, and while one of the men was fetching him, Samuel told Barbara at least fifty times that she would “be better the morrow,” and each time Barbara, too weak for speech, nodded as much as to say that she certainly would be. When the doctor came he saw her extremity and sent Samuel and Maggie from the room. A quick examination followed.
“Samuel,” said the doctor, stepping into the kitchen, “Barbara is a very sick woman.”