“Killed; nonsense, he has fainted, I suppose. Where is he? What has happened?” she asked, as she followed Fairy. “By the gate. Jack wants you to help to carry him indoors; he is insensible.” “Insensible! What has made him insensible? How did it all happen?” “I don’t know, it was all so quick. Charlie wanted me to dance with him, and Jack was angry because his lamb is dead, and he hit Charlie with his crook, and somehow Charlie fell and knocked his head against the stone gate-post,” said Fairy. They were close to Charlie and Jack, and Mrs. Shelley saw at a glance it was a more serious matter than she had at first supposed, and having, like Jack, a quick imagination, as well as a quick temper, she guessed what had prompted Jack to raise his hand against his brother, and, for the first time in her life, she turned and spoke unkindly to Fairy. “Go out of my sight; it is all your fault; but for you there would never have been strife between my boys. Fool that I was to take you in, when something warned me, even then, it would lead to no good. Oh! Jack, Jack, my son, my son, what are we to do?” Even then, in the first flow of her grief, Mrs. Shelley’s sympathy seemed to be for her darling son who had struck the unlucky blow, and not for the poor boy stretched lifeless, to all appearance, on the ground. “Get him indoors first, mother, and then I will run to Lewes for the doctor. If you will take his feet, we can easily manage him.” “Yes, yes, to be sure; we don’t want all those men to know what has happened. Your father will be out in a few minutes for some more ale, and then we can tell him,” said Mrs. Shelley, helping Jack to carry Charlie to the house. Again Mrs. Shelley was thinking of her eldest boy. If, indeed, Charlie were killed, she knew it would be a terrible thing for Jack, and in any case she did not want all this shearing company to know what had happened, and gossip about it. As she and Jack carried Charlie to the house, Fairy followed, trembling, and wondering what Mrs. Shelley’s cruel words meant. Why was it her fault? What had she done? When had she wilfully stirred up strife between the boys? And where was she to go out of Mrs. Shelley’s sight? Was she to be turned out of the house because poor Charlie was dangerously hurt? Frightened and grieved for Charlie and Jack, cut to the quick by Mrs. Shelley’s words, Fairy threw herself on the bench outside the door, and burst into tears. A minute or two later, John Shelley, coming out of the tent to fetch some more beer from the house, saw the unwonted sight of Fairy crying as if her heart would break. “Fairy! Why, my pet, what is it? Crying at my White Ram. What is the matter?” he asked, laying his hand on the bowed golden head. “Oh John, John!” sobbed Fairy, clinging to him, “poor Charlie is dreadfully hurt; it was partly an accident and partly Jack hit him, and he fell, and he is insensible. Go in and see. I mustn’t come.”