"I don't ask for that to-night—all I ask is food and shelter, same as you'd give to a dog."
"Well, I'll leave you to Pete," said Reuben, and walked out of the room. He considered this the more dignified course, and went upstairs to bed.
The brothers were left alone, except for Harry, who was busy imitating Albert's cough, much to his own satisfaction.
Pete fetched some soup from the larder and heated it up to a tepid condition; he also produced bread and cold bacon, which the prodigal could not touch. Albert sat hunched up by the fire, coughing and shivering. He had not altered much since he left Odiam; he was thin and hectic, and had an unshaved look about him, also there were a few grey streaks in his hair—otherwise he was the same. His manner was the same too, though his voice had changed completely, and he had lost his Sussex accent.
Pete ministered to him with a strange devotion, which he carried finally to the pitch of putting him into his own bed. The absence of so many of the children did not make much more room in the house, as Reuben's ideas on sleeping had always been compact—also there were the little boys, the new dairy woman, and a big store of potatoes. Pete's large untidy bed was the only available accommodation, and Albert was glad of it, for he had reached the last stage of exhaustion.
"I bet you anything," he said before he fell asleep, "that now I'm here the old boy won't be able to turn me out, however much he wants to."
§ 11.
Whether Reuben would have succeeded or not is uncertain, for he was never put to the proof. The next day Albert was feverish and delirious, and the doctor had to be sent for. He cheerfully gave the eldest Backfield three months to live—his lungs were in a dreadful state, one completely gone, the other partly so. He had caught a chill, too, walking in the dark and cold. There could be no thought of moving him.
So Albert stayed in Pete's room, almost entirely ignored by his father. After some consideration, Reuben had come to the conclusion that this was the most dignified attitude to adopt. Now and then, when he was better, he sent him up some accounts to do, as it hurt him to think of his son lying idle week after week; but he never went near him, and Albert would never have willingly crossed his path. Those were not the days of open windows and fresh-air cures, so there was no especial reason why he should ever leave the low-raftered stuffy room, where he would lie by the hour in a frowsty dream of sickness, broken only by fits of coughing and hæmorrhage.