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is. I’d better be careful.’ And when she was trudging home
again, she felt he was coming to share her burden.
‘Is it bad?’ asked Paul, as soon as she entered the house.
‘It’s bad enough,’ she replied.
‘What?’
She sighed and sat down, undoing her bonnet-strings.
Her son watched her face as it was lifted, and her small,
work-hardened hands fingering at the bow under her chin.
‘Well,’ she answered, ‘it’s not really dangerous, but the
nurse says it’s a dreadful smash. You see, a great piece of
rock fell on his leg—here—and it’s a compound fracture.
There are pieces of bone sticking through—-‘
‘Ugh—how horrid!’ exclaimed the children.
‘And,’ she continued, ‘of course he says he’s going to
die—it wouldn’t be him if he didn’t. ‘I’m done for, my lass!’
he said, looking at me. ‘Don’t be so silly,’ I said to him.
‘You’re not going to die of a broken leg, however badly it’s
smashed.’ ‘I s’ll niver come out of ‘ere but in a wooden box,’
he groaned. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘if you want them to carry you
into the garden in a wooden box, when you’re better, I’ve no
doubt they will.’ ‘If we think it’s good for him,’ said the Sis-
ter. She’s an awfully nice Sister, but rather strict.’
Mrs. Morel took off her bonnet. The children waited in
silence.
‘Of course, he IS bad,’ she continued, ‘and he will be. It’s
a great shock, and he’s lost a lot of blood; and, of course, it IS
a very dangerous smash. It’s not at all sure that it will mend
so easily. And then there’s the fever and the mortification—
if it took bad ways he’d quickly be gone. But there, he’s a

1 Sons and Lovers