George stood beside her silent a moment.
"I hardly like to say I hadn't heard," he said at last, gently. "You'll think I ought to have heard. But I didn't know. I have been in town and very busy."
"Aye," said Mary, without looking up, "aye, an yer've been gettin married. I knew as yer didn't mean nothin onkind."
Then she stopped again—till suddenly, with a furtive gesture, she raised her apron, and drew it across her eyes, which had the look of perennial tears.
On the other side of the cottage meanwhile a boy of about fourteen was sitting. He had just done his afternoon's wash, and was resting himself by the fire, enjoying a thumbed football almanac. He had not risen when the visitors entered, and while his grandmother was speaking his lips still moved dumbly, as he went on adding up the football scores. He was a sickly, rather repulsive lad with a callous expression.
"Let me wait outside, George," said Letty, hurriedly.
Some instinct in her shrank from the poor mother and her story. But George begged her to stay, and she sat down nervously by the door, trying to protect her pretty skirt from the wet boards.
"Will you tell me how it was?" said George, sitting down himself in front of the bowed mother, and bending towards her. "Was it in the pit? Jamie wasn't one of our men, I know. Wasn't it for Mr. Morrison he worked?"
Mrs. Batchelor made a sign of assent. Then she raised her head quickly, and a flash of some passionate convulsion passed through her face.
"It wor John Burgess as done it," she said, staring at George. "It wor him as took the boy's life. But he's gone himsel—so theer—I'll not say no more. It wor Jamie's first week o hewin—he'd been a loader this three year, an taken a turn at the hewin now an again—an five weeks sen John Burgess—he wor butty for Mr. Morrison, yer know, in the Owd Pit—took him on, an the lad wor arnin six an sixpence a day. An he wor that pleased yo cud see it shinin out ov im. And it wor on the Tuesday as he went on the afternoon shift. I saw im go, an he wor down'earted. An I fell a cryin as he went up the street, for I knew why he wor down'earted, an I asked the Lord to elp him. And about six o'clock they come runnin—an they towd me there'd bin an accident, an they wor bringin im—an he wor alive—an I must bear up. They'd found him kneelin in his place with his arm up, an the pick in it—just as the blast had took him—An his poor back—oh! my God—scorched off him—scorched off him."