“Is it your legs?”
“Yes, it’s my legs. I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean it when I fell under the horses to-day, but Hall he beated of me and said I did.”
After that I did not loose him; or I’m sure he would have gone down again. Arrived at his cottage, he was for passing it.
“Don’t you know your own door, Dick Mitchel?”
“It’s the strap,” he said. “I ha’ got to take it to Cawson’s.”
“Oh, I’ll step round with that. Let’s see what there is to do.”
He seemed unwilling, saying he must take it back to Hall in the morning. Very well, I said, so he could. We went in at his door; and at first I thought I must have got into a black fog. The room was a narrow, poking place; but I couldn’t see across it. Two children were coughing, one choking, one crying. Mrs. Mitchel’s face, ornamented with blacks, gradually loomed out to view through the atmosphere.
“It be the chimbley, sir. I hope you’ll please to excuse it. It don’t smoke as bad as this except when the weather’s cold beyond common.”
“It’s to be hoped it doesn’t. I should call it rather miserable if it did.”