“How’s it outside?” whispered one to him. 360
“Dead.” The word was hardly breathed, but Christopher spun round on his heel.
“Who’s dead?”
They looked at him uneasily, and at one another.
He moved to the door mechanically, when an old man, a north-countryman and a Methodist preacher of some note, laid his hand on his arm.
“Don’t ’ee take on, lad. ’Tis the Lord’s will which life He’ll take home to him. Maybe He’s got bigger work for you than for the little ’un.”
“Who is it?” His dry lips hardly framed the words.
“It’s Ann Barty’s little chap as was passing. We thought ’twere but the glass.”
“Better a boy than a man,” muttered another.
Christopher paid no heed. He went out with the old Methodist beside him. A group of men stood round something under the window which one of them had covered with a coat. They made way for the master, and not one of them, fathers and sons as they were, but felt a throb of thankfulness the small life had been taken in preference to his. But Christopher knelt down and raised the coat.