But the child was insensible. Fatigue, the excitement of the struggle, the anguish of movement had done their work--she lay like a log upon his arm. 'She's fainted,' said Hannah, recognising the fact with a sort of fierce reluctance. 'Tak her up, an doan't stan blatherin theer.' And she moved out of the way. The boy gathered up the thin figure, and, stumbling over the tattered rugs, carried her up by a superhuman effort. Reuben leant against the passage wall, staring at his wife. 'Yo're a hard woman, Hannah--a hard woman,' he said to her under his breath, in a low, shaken voice. 'An yo coed 'em beggar's brats--oh Lord--Lord!' 'Howd your tongue, an blow up t' fire,' was all the reply she vouchsafed him, and Reuben obeyed. Meanwhile upstairs Louie had been laid on her bed. Consciousness had come back, and she was moaning. David stood beside her in utter despair. He thought she was going to die, and he had done it. At last he sank down beside her, and flinging an arm round her, he laid his hot cheek to her icy one. 'Louie, doan't--doan't--I'll tak yo away from here, Louie, when I can. I'll tak care on yo, Louie. Doan't, Louie,--doan't!' His whole being seemed rent asunder by sympathy and remorse. Uncle Reuben, coming up with some hot gruel, found him sitting on the bed beside his sister, on whom he had heaped all the clothing he could find, the tears running down his cheeks. CHAPTER VI From that night forward, David looked upon the farm and all his life there with other eyes. Up till now, in spite of the perennial pressure of Hannah's tyrannies, which, however, weighed much less upon him than upon Louie, he had been--as he had let Reuben see--happy enough. The open-air life, the animals, his books, out of all of them he managed to extract a very fair daily sum of enjoyment. And he had been content enough with his daily tasks--herding the sheep, doing the rough work of the stable and cow-house, running Aunt Hannah's errands with the donkey-cart to Clough End, helping in the haymaking and the sheep-shearing, or the driving of stock to and from the various markets Reuben frequented. All these things he had done with a curious placidity, a detachment and yet readiness of mind, as one who lends himself, without reluctance, to a life not his own. It was this temper mainly, helped, no doubt, by his unusual tastes and his share of foreign blood and looks, which had set him apart from the other lads of his own class in the neighbourhood. He had few friends of his own age, yet he was not unpopular, except, perhaps, with an overbearing animal like Jim Wigson, who instinctively looked upon other people's brains as an offence to his own muscular pretensions.