'They do not all look so. At least I am told this is a very uncommon case for this country. Yet no doubt there are others, and it is not—"just Morton Hollow." Suppose, for the sake of argument, that all mill people look so; what deduction would you draw?'
'Well, that I should like to have the mills,' said Wych Hazel.
They walked slowly on through the Hollow. The place was still and empty; all the hands being in the mills; the buzz of machinery within, as they passed one, was almost the only sound abroad. The cottages were forlorn looking places; set anywhere, without reference to the consideration whether space for a garden ground was to be had. No such thing as a real garden could be seen. No flowers bloomed anywhere; no token of life's comfort or pleasure hung about the poor dwellings. Poverty and dirt and barrenness; those three facts struck the visitor's eye and heart. A certain degree of neatness and order indeed was enforced about the road and the outside of the houses; nothing to give the feeling of the sweet reality within. The only person they saw to speak to was a woman sitting at an open door crying. It would not have occurred to most people that she was one 'to speak to'; however, Rollo stepped a little out of the road to open communication with her. His companion followed, but the words were German.
'What is the matter?' she asked as they turned to go on their way.
'Do you remember the girl that came to Gyda's that day you were there? this is her mother. Trüdchen, she says, has been sick for two weeks; very ill; she has just begun to sit up; and her father has driven her to mill work again this morning. The mother says she knows the girl will die.'
'Driven her to work!' said Hazel. 'What for?'
'Money. For her wages.'
'What nonsense!' said Hazel, knitting her brows. 'Why, I can pay that! Tell her so, please, will you? And tell her to send Trüdchen down to Chickaree for Mrs. Bywank and me to cure her up. She will never get well here.'
Rollo gave a swift bright look at his companion, and then made three leaps up the bank to the cottage door. He came down again smiling, but there was a suspicious veiling of his sharp eyes.
'She will cry no more to-day,' he remarked to Wych Hazel. 'And now you have done some work.'