“She will—jist about!” agreed Rosie gloomily, from the back seat. “I’m sure I don’t know however he’ll manage to get en home, without he carries en all the way, and he’s a pretty good weight, Johnny is.”
“Somebody ’ull give ’em a lift, you mid be sure,” said optimistic Tom, from his place next Rosie. “’Tis wonderful how things do fall out. There now, d’ye see, I never looked for gettin’ a ride in sich pleasant company.”
And he leered at Rosie in so meaning a manner that she tossed her head and forgot all about her little brother.
Mrs. Reed’s indignation and anxiety knew no bounds, and she was far from satisfied with the girls’ explanation. Indeed, she rated them both soundly, refused to hear any details of their doings, and dismissed them in dudgeon to their little attic room, where, infected by her alarm, they lay quaking as the hours passed without bringing their father.
Midnight had been proclaimed by the asthmatic cuckoo-clock, and one had struck before the sound of heavy footsteps on the path without awoke Maggie from the uneasy doze into which she had at length fallen.
“’Tis Father,” she cried, sitting up in her bed. “Lard! how he do fumble wi’ the latch. He do seem to be a bit drinky, and he can’t have been druv, after all. He must ha’ carried Johnny all the way. ’Tis a mercy if he haven’t dropped him.”
They could hear their mother unbolting the house door, her voice raised in querulous reproach.
“’Tis a shame for ’ee, John, to keep out the child to this time o’ night.” Then a sudden cry. “For mercy’s sake, what ha’ ye done wi’ him? Where be he?”
“Where be what?” returned the father good-humouredly, if a little thickly. “Johnny? Why he be at home and abed hours ago. I left en wi’ the maids. They be come home, sure?”
Maggie’s heart seemed to stand still; in a moment she had thrown a shawl over her nightgown, and was pattering down the narrow stairs, Rosie following and sobbing aloud. They burst into the kitchen. John Reed’s tall figure was standing in the open doorway, and though his wife, voiceless with terror, was clutching him by the arm, actually shaking him in her anxiety, he was smiling stupidly down at her, quite unconscious of the effect produced by his announcement.