"She wor 'ere gettin' us our tea," said another child; "but she didn't eat nothin'." John impatiently pushed the children before him back into the kitchen. "You 'old your tongues," he said, "an' stay 'ere." And he made for the door in the kitchen wall. But Arthur caught hold of his coat tails and clung to them. "Yer oughtn't to go up there--mother don't let any one go there." John wrenched himself violently away. "Oh, don't she! yo' take your 'ands away, yer little varmint, or I'll brain yer." He raised his stick, threatening. The child, terrified, fell back, and John, opening the door, rushed up the stairs. He was so terribly excited that his fumbling fingers could hardly find the ribbon round his neck. At last he drew it over his head, and made stupendous efforts to steady his hand sufficiently to put the key in the lock. The children below heard a sharp cry directly the cupboard door was opened; then the frantic dragging of a box on to the stairs, the creak of hinges--a groan long and lingering--and then silence. They clung together in terror, and the little girls began to cry. At last Arthur took courage and opened the door. The old man was sitting on the top stair, supported sideways by the wall, his head hanging forward, and his hands dropping over his knees, in a dead faint. At the sight all four children ran helter-skelter into the lane, shouting "Mammy! mammy!" in an anguish of fright. Their clamour was caught by the fierce north wind, which had begun to sweep the hill, and was borne along till it reached the ears of a woman who was sitting sewing in a cottage some fifty yards further up the lane. She stepped to her door, opened it and listened. "It's at Bessie's," she said; "whativer's wrong wi' the childer?" By this time Arthur had begun to run towards her. Darkness was falling rapidly, but she could distinguish his small figure against the snow, and his halting gait. "What is it, Arthur?--what is it, lammie?" "O Cousin Mary Anne! Cousin Mary Anne! It's Uncle John, an' 'ee's dead!" She ran like the wind at the words, catching at the child's hand in the dark, and dragging him along with her. "Where is he, Arthur?--don't take on, honey!" The child hurried on with her, sobbing, and she was soon on the stairs beside the unconscious John. Mary Anne looked with amazement at the cupboard and the open box. Then she laid the old man on the floor, her gentle face working with the effort to remember what the doctor had once told her of the best way of dealing with persons in a faint. She got water, and she sent Arthur to a neighbour for brandy. "Where's your mother, child?" she asked, as she despatched him. "Don' know," repeated the boy, stupidly. "Oh, for goodness' sake, she's never at Dawson's again!" groaned Mary Anne to herself; "she wor there last night, an' the night afore that. And her mother's brother lyin' like this in 'er house!"