“Yes. Please God.”
“Is he injured?”
“No, no. Get out of my way, Johnny. Go to the mother now, if you like. Tell her he has only been shut up in the barn and I’m coming in with him. The dirt’s nothing: it was on him before.”
Just as meek and gentle she stood as ever, the tears rolling down her face, and a quiet joy in it. Tod brought him in, laying him across her knee as she sat on the sofa.
“There,” he said. “He’ll be all right when he has been washed and had something to eat.”
“God bless you, Joseph!” she whispered.
Tod could say no more. He bent to kiss Hugh; lifted his face, and kissed the mother. And then he went rushing out with a burst of emotion.