Bob Smallpiece sprang after him, and in twenty paces they were running abreast. As they neared the old man they could hear him talking rapidly, in a monotonous, high-pitched voice; he was hatless, and though they called he took no heed, but stumbled on as one seeing and hearing nothing; till, as the keeper reached to seize his arm, he trod in a gulley and fell forward. The shock interrupted his talk, and he breathed heavily, staring still before him, as he regained his uncertain foothold, and reeled a step farther. Then Bob Smallpiece grasped him above the elbow, and shouted his name. “What’s the matter, gran’dad?” Johnny demanded. “Ill?” The old man glared fixedly, and made as though to resume his course. “Why, what’s this?” said Bob Smallpiece, retaining the arm, and lifting a hand gently to the old man’s hair. It was blood, dotted and trickling. “Lord! he’s had a bad wipe over the head,” said Bob, and with that lifted old May in his arms, as a nurse lifts a child. “Theydon’s nearest; run, Johnny boy—run like blazes an’ fetch the doctor tantivy!” “Take him into the Dun Cow?” “No—home’s best, an’ save shiftin’ him twice. Run it!” “Purple Emperors an’ Small Coppers,” began the old man again in his shrill chatter. “Small Coppers an’ Marsh Ringlets everywhere, and my bag full o’ letters at the beginning of the round, but I finished my round and now they’re all gone; all gone because o’ London comin’, an’ I give in my empty bag—” and so he tailed off into indistinguishable gabble, while Bob Smallpiece carried him into the wood. To Johnny, scudding madly toward Theydon, it imparted a grotesque horror, as of some absurd nightmare, this baby-babble of his white-haired grandfather, carried baby-fashion. He blinked as he ran, and felt his head for his cap, half believing that he ran in a dream in very truth. V. MRS. MAY still stood at the cottage door, and the keeper, warned by the light, called from a little distance. “Here we are, Mrs. May,” he said, as cheerfully as might be. “He’s all right—just had a little accident, that’s all. So I’m carryin’ him. Don’t be frightened; get a little water—I think he’s got a bit of a cut on the head. But it’s nothing to fluster about.” . . . And so assuring and protesting, Bob brought the old man in. The woman saw the staring grey face and the blood. “O-o-o—my God!” she quavered, stricken sick and pale. “He’s—he’s—” “No, no. No, no! Keep steady and help. Shift the table, an’ I’ll put him down on the rug.” She mastered herself, and said no more. The old man, whose babble had sunk to an indistinct mutter, was no sooner laid on the floor than he made a vague effort to rise, as though to continue on his way. But he was feebler than before, and Bob Smallpiece pressed him gently back upon the new-mended coat, doubled to make a pillow.