“Sure? ay, I’m sure enough; it’s only a scratch. See here.”
Saying this he removed one of his boots, and pulling up his trousers displayed a bandaged leg.
“Well, but we can’t see through the bandages, you know,” said Mrs Marrot.
“Let me take them off, father, and I’ll replace—”
“Take ’em off!” exclaimed John, pulling down the leg of his trouser and rising with a laugh. “No, no, Loo; why, it’s only just bin done up all snug by the doctor, who’d kick up a pretty shindy if he found I had undid it. There’s one good will come of it anyhow, I shall have a day or two in the house with you all; for the doctor said I must give it a short rest. So, off to bed again, Loo. This is not an hour for a respectable young woman to be wanderin’ about in her night-dress. Away with you!”
“Was any one else hurt, father?” said Loo. She asked the question anxiously, but there was a slight flush on her cheek and a peculiar smile which betrayed some hidden feeling.
“No one else,” returned her father. “I tell ’ee it wasn’t an accident at all—it was only a engine that brushed up agin me as I was comin’ out o’ the shed. That’s all; so I just came home and left Will Garvie to look after our engine. There, run away.”
Loo smiled, nodded and disappeared, followed by Mrs Marrot, who went, like a sensible woman, to see that her alarmed domestic was all right. While she was away John went to the crib and kissed the rosy cheek of his sleeping boy. Then he bent over the bed with the white dimity curtains to Miss Gertie’s forehead, for which purpose he had to remove a mass of curly hair with his big brown hand.
“Bless you, my darling,” he said in silent speech, “you came near bein’ fatherless this night—nearer than you ever was before.” He kissed her again tenderly, and a fervent “thank the Lord!” rose from his heart to heaven.
In less than half-an-hour after this the engine-driver’s family sank into profound repose, serenaded by the music of a mineral train from the black country, which rushed laboriously past their dwelling like an over-weighted thunderbolt.