The Squire collapsed on the bed as soon as he was touched. “I canna do it,” he groaned, “I canna do it. It’s going round wi’ me. Who is it?”
“Calamy, sir,” the butler answered, and added bluntly, “If you want to get into your coffin, master, you’re going the right way to do it!”
“Anyway, I canna do it,” the Squire repeated, and remained motionless for a moment. “I couldn’t manage the stairs if ’twere ever so.”
“You’d manage ’em one way. You’d fall down ’em. You get to bed, sir. You get to bed. There, I’ll heave you up.”
“I’m weaker than I thought,” the Squire muttered. He suffered himself to be put into bed.
“You’ve lost blood, sir, that’s what it is,” the butler said. “And at your age it’s not to be replaced in a week, nor a fortnight. You lie still, sir. Maybe in a month you’ll be tramping the stairs. But blindfold—it’s the Lord’s mercy as you didn’t fall and only stop in Kingdom Come! For if fall you did, I don’t know where else you’d stop.”
“I’m afraid so. Anyway I canna do it!”
“Only feet foremost.”
The Squire sighed and turned himself to the wall, perhaps to hide the tear that helplessness forced from old eyes. He couldn’t do it, and he must put up with the consequences. He could not any longer be sufficient to himself. It was a sad thought, but apparently he made up his mind to it, for twenty-four hours later, when Jos and Arthur were with him, he sent the girl away. When she had gone he sought under the pillow for his keys, and after handling them for a time, “Is the door shut? And no one here but you?”
“We are quite alone, sir.”