Mrs. Peartree looked aghast, and her cheeks gradually grew pale too.
‘Mercy onus, Luke, can you not speak?’ said she, irritably. ‘What’s happened to Mark? Is he hurted?—is he—killed?’
As she spoke she grew sick at heart with apprehension, and turning at a heavy sound of footsteps came face to face with her husband. He lay upon a stretcher covered with rugs and blankets, and carried by one or two of the Brethren who used to meet in the parlour on Good Friday. His face was deathly pale, but his eyes wandered restlessly about, and when they lighted on his wife’s face they gleamed with recognition. He smiled faintly, and stretched towards her a trembling hand.
‘Don’t ’ee cry, mother,’ he said, seeing that her lips trembled and her eyes grew dim; then, seeing Madeline in the background ready to spring upon him, he added feebly, ‘Don’t come a-nigh me, little Madlin—I’m a’most worn out.’
Mrs. Peartree was a woman of strong emotions, but she had a wonderful power of self-control. She resolutely choked back the rising desire to scream and fall into hysterics—and laying her brown hand on her husband’s cold wet brow, said quietly but firmly:—
‘Why, Mark, Mark—what’s to do? I never thought to see my man brought back to me like this.’
Then motioning Madeline to keep back, she had Uncle Mark carried into the bright warm kitchen, where the breakfast was set, and, bringing in the horsehair sofa from the parlour, drew it up beside the fire, and had him placed thereon.
She had need of her resolution, for all poor Uncle Luke could do in this time of trouble was to sit in a corner and cry like a child, asserting, with strange vehemence, that he had no hand in the disaster, while Madeline, as if for sympathy, sat by his side and cried too.
The movement and excitement seemed to have completely overpowered Uncle Mark; no sooner did he get upon the couch than he sank back with his eyes closed, and seemed to breathe his last.
Meantime one of the Brethren had run off for the doctor, while another held a glass containing a little whisky, and Mrs. Peartree, taking the drooping head under her arm, poured between the livid lips a few drops of the spirit. At this he seemed to revive a little—he opened his eyes, again recognised his wife, and fixed his gaze on hers.