"Mary Batchelor's house is down here," said George, turning into a side lane, not without a feeling of relief. "I hope we sha'n't find her out—no, there she is. You can't call these people affectionate, can you?"
They were close on a group of three brick cottages all close together. Their doors were all open. In one cottage a stout collier's wife was toiling through her wash. At the door of another the sewing-machine agent was waiting for his weekly payment; while on the threshold of the third stood an elderly tottering woman shading her eyes from the light as she tried to make out the features of the approaching couple.
"Why, Mary!" said George, "you haven't forgotten me? I have brought my wife to see you."
And he held out his hand with a boyish kindness.
The old woman looked at them both in a bewildered way. Her face, with its long chin and powerful nose, was blanched and drawn, her grey hair straggling from under her worn black-ribboned cap; and her black dress had a neglected air, which drew George's attention. Mary Batchelor, so long as he remembered her, whether as his old nurse, or in later days as the Bible-woman of the village, had always been remarkable for a peculiar dignity and neatness.
"Mary, is there anything wrong?" he asked her, holding her hand.
"Coom yer ways in," said the old woman, grasping his arm, and taking no notice of Letty. "He's gone—he'll not freeten nobody—he wor here three days afore they buried him. I could no let him go—but it's three weeks now sen they put him away."
"Why, Mary, what is it? Not James!—not your son!" said George, letting her guide him into the cottage.
"Aye, it's James—it's my son," she repeated drearily. "Will yer be takkin a cheer—an perhaps"—she looked round uncertainly, first at Letty, then at the wet floor where she had been feebly scrubbing—"perhaps the leddy ull be sittin down. I'm nobbut in a muddle. But I don't seem to get forard wi my work a mornins—not sen they put im away."
And she dropped into a chair herself, with a long sigh—forgetting her visitors apparently—her large and bony hands, scarred with their life's work, lying along her knees.