He was frightened and appalled at the wide stretches of green woodland around and the great dome of the blue sky above. It made him feel smaller and more deserted than ever, and his head was sore with home-sickness for his mother and Mabel, the sister next him, and the baby, his especial charge, for whose warm weight his little arms ached with longing. He had always been his mother's special help. He had minded the younger ones when she got a job at washing or charing, and helped her to sew sacks with little fingers quickly grown deft with practice. They had been very happy, even though food was often short, and spent many pleasant hours amongst the graves of their churchyard playgrounds, or sitting on the Tower Wharf watching the river and the big ships. The nightmare of his short life had been a man called Daddy, who came back when they were all asleep, smelling strong and queer, and then there would be furious words and the dull thuds of blows falling on his mother's slender body, and he would throw himself screaming to protect his beloved against the wild beast that was attacking her. Once in the fray his arm had got broken, and he had seen, as in an evil dream, a dreaded "cop" enter the room, and Daddy had been hailed to prison, after which there was long peace and joy in the little home. Then the man came out, and the quarrels were worse than ever, till a kindly neighbour took Percy to sleep on the rag bed with her other children, out of the way of Daddy, who had conceived a violent hatred against his firstborn. Then one day Daddy was brought home, straight and stiff, on a stretcher. There had been a drunken row at the "Pig and Whistle," and Daddy had fallen backwards on the pavement, and died of a fractured skull. An inquest was held, and much more interest was shown in Daddy's dead body than any one had evinced in his living one. A coroner and a doctor and twelve jurymen "sat" gravely on the corpse, and decided he had died "an accidental death." Then there was a funeral and a long drive in a carriage with much crape and black about, and Daddy was left in a deep yellow hole with muddy water at the bottom. And peace came again to the widow and orphans.