And there sat, and had been sitting for hours past, the four children in the other room, knowing the condition of the parent whom they most respected, but not even endeavouring to do anything for his comfort. What could they do? They knew, by long training and thorough experience, that a fit of drunkenness had to be got out of by sleep. To them there was nothing shocking in it. It was but a periodical misfortune. “She’ll have to own he’s been and done it now,” said Grimes, looking down upon the man, and alluding to his wife’s good-natured obstinacy. He handed the candle to us, and, with a mixture of tenderness and roughness, of which the roughness was only in the manner and the tenderness was real, he raised Mackenzie’s head and placed it on the bolster, and lifted the man’s legs on to the bed. Then he took off the man’s boots, and the old silk handkerchief from the neck, and pulled the trousers straight, and arranged the folds of the coat. It was almost as though he were laying out one that was dead. The eldest girl was now standing by us, and Grimes asked her how long her father had been in that condition. “Jack Hoggart brought him in just afore it was dark,” said the girl. Then it was explained to us that Jack Hoggart was the man whom we had seen sitting on the door-step. “And your mother?” asked Grimes. “The perlice took her afore dinner.” “And you children;--what have you had to eat?” In answer to this the girl only shook her head. Grimes took no immediate notice of this, but called the drunken man by his name, and shook his shoulder, and looked round to a broken ewer which stood on the little table, for water to dash upon him;--but there was no water in the jug. He called again and repeated the shaking, and at last Mackenzie opened his eyes, and in a dull, half-conscious manner looked up at us. “Come, my man,” said Grimes, “shake this off and have done with it.” “Hadn’t you better try to get up?” we asked. There was a faint attempt at rising, then a smile,--a smile which was terrible to witness, so sad was all which it said; then a look of utter, abject misery, coming, as we thought, from a momentary remembrance of his degradation; and after that he sank back in the dull, brutal, painless, death-like apathy of absolute unconsciousness. “It’ll be morning afore he’ll move,” said the girl. “She’s about right,” said Grimes. “He’s got it too heavy for us to do anything but just leave him. We’ll take a look for the box and the papers.”