The Squire said no more, and they turned into the lane, where the ice lay thick in the deep ruts, and on either hand curls of smoke rose into the clear cold sky. The Squire looked about him with eyes which no detail escaped. Robert, without a word of comment, pointed out this feature and that, showed where Henslowe had begun repairs, where the new well was to be, what the water-supply had been till now, drew the Squire’s attention to the roofs, the pigstyes, the drainage, or rather complete absence of drainage, and all in the dry voice of someone going through a catalogue. Word had already fled like wildfire through the hamlet that the Squire was there. Children and adults, a pale emaciated crew, poured out into the wintry air to look. The Squire knit his brows with annoyance as the little crowd in the lane grew. Robert took no notice. Presently he pushed open the door of the house where he had spent the night. In the kitchen a girl of sixteen was clearing away the various nondescript heaps on which the family had slept, and was preparing breakfast. The Squire looked at the floor,-- ‘I thought I understood from Henslowe,’ he muttered, as though to himself, ‘that there were no mud floors left on the estate--’ ‘There are only three houses in Mile End without them; said Robert, catching what he said. They went upstairs, and the mother stood open-eyed while the Squire’s restless look gathered in the details of the room, the youth’s face as he lay back on his pillows, whiter than they, exhausted and yet refreshed by the sponging with vinegar and water which the mother had just been administering to him; the bed, the gaps in the worm-eaten boards, the holes in the roof where the plaster bulged inward, as though a shake would bring it down; the coarse china shepherdesses on the mantelshelf, and the flowers which Catherine had put there the day before. He asked a few questions, said an abrupt word or two to the mother, and they tramped downstairs again and into the street. Then Robert took him across to the little improvised hospital, saying to him on the threshold, with a moment’s hesitation,-- ‘As you know, for adults there is not much risk, but there is always some risk--’