“Climb in through the window.”
“Lord have mercy on me, how can a poor old cripple climb in to ye?”
“Mother, you must.”
“I can’t, I can’t, wench; how can I?”
“Try, now try for Bess’s sake. My blood will be upon you if Isaac has his way.”
The words seemed to strike Ursula full in the face. She stood shaking, blinking her eyes, and working her loose, inturned lips together. Then she thrust her arms over the sill, gripped the wooden ledge within, and tried to drag herself to the level of the window. Bess watched the wrinkled and trembling head straining forward upon its yellow neck. The sinews stood out in the sticks of forearms, the feet scraped and worked against the wall. Slowly Ursula dragged herself up and through so that she could get one knee upon the ledge. She lay there panting a moment, looking at Bess.
“Quick, mother, quick!”
Ursula drew her left knee up on to the window-ledge, knelt, and, getting on her feet, crouched half within the opening of the lattice. There was a wooden stool under the window. Ursula caught one foot in her petticoat in the descent, lurched forward, and came tumbling on the floor. Her forehead struck the brick-work heavily. For a moment she lay groaning and twitching, Bess gazing at her in an agony of helpless dread.
Ursula was shaken but not stunned. She struggled up on her hands and knees, looking round her with a vacant pathos that might have appeared ludicrous at any other time. Bess was bending forward in the chair.
“Quick, mother, a knife!”