“Eh, tha mucky little ’ussy!” he cried. “Cowd as death!”
“You ought to have been a salamander,” she laughed, washing his back. It was very rarely she would do anything so personal for him. The children did those things.
“The next world won’t be half hot enough for you,” she added.
“No,” he said; “tha’lt see as it’s draughty for me.”
But she had finished. She wiped him in a desultory fashion, and went upstairs, returning immediately with his shifting-trousers. When he was dried he struggled into his shirt. Then, ruddy and shiny, with hair on end, and his flannelette shirt hanging over his pit-trousers, he stood warming the garments he was going to put on. He turned them, he pulled them inside out, he scorched them.
“Goodness, man!” cried Mrs. Morel; “get dressed!”
“Should thee like to clap thysen into britches as cowd as a tub o’ water?” he said.
At last he took off his pit-trousers and donned decent black. He did all this on the hearthrug, as he would have done if Annie and her familiar friends had been present.
Mrs. Morel turned the bread in the oven. Then from the red earthenware panchion of dough that stood in a corner she took another handful of paste, worked it to the proper shape, and dropped it into a tin. As she was doing so Barker knocked and entered. He was a quiet, compact little man, who looked as if he would go through a stone wall. His black hair was cropped short, his head was bony. Like most miners, he was pale, but healthy and taut.
“Evenin’, missis,” he nodded to Mrs. Morel, and he seated himself with a sigh.
“Good-evening,” she replied cordially.
“Tha’s made thy heels crack,” said Morel.
“I dunno as I have,” said Barker.
He sat, as the men always did in Mrs. Morel’s kitchen, effacing himself rather.
“How’s missis?” she asked of him.
He had told her some time back:
“We’re expectin’ us third just now, you see.”
“Well,” he answered, rubbing his head, “she keeps pretty middlin’, I think.”
“Let’s see—when?” asked Mrs. Morel.
“Well, I shouldn’t be surprised any time now.”
“Ah! And she’s kept fairly?”
