“Well, perhaps I’ve come at the right time, if that’s so.”
“You can help sit up.”
“Have you had your supper, Warten?”
“Yes, Zalia, at the farm.”
“And how’s trade?” asked Stanse.
“Quietly, old girl.”
They heard a moaning in the other room. Barbara lit the lantern and all went to look. Warten stayed behind, smoking.
Zeen lay there, on a poverty-stricken little bed, low down near the ground, behind the loom, huddled deep on his bolster under a dirty blanket: a thin little black chap, leaning against a pillow in the dancing twilight of the lantern. His eyes were closed and his bony face half-hidden in the blue night-cap. His breath rustled; and each puff from his hoarse throat, blowing out the thin flesh of his cheeks, escaped through a little opening on one side of his sunken lips, which each time opened and shut.
“Ooh! Ooh! Ooh!” cried Barbara.
“That’s bad, that’s bad,” said Stanse and shook her head.