You'd better see about some help." Then, turning to the children: "We're bringing him home." Then she relapsed into the same mute looking into space, her hands folded on her lap.

Paul, looking at her, felt he could not breathe.

The house was dead silent.
"I went to work, mother," he said plaintively.
"Did you ?" she answered, dully.
After half an hour Morel, troubled and bewildered, came in again.
"Wheer s'll we ha'e him when he DOES come ?" he asked his wife.
"In the front-room." "Then I'd better shift th' table ?" "Yes." "An' ha'e him across th' chairs ?" "You know there--Yes, I suppose so." Morel and Paul went, with a candle, into the parlour.

There was no gas there.

The father unscrewed the top of the big mahogany oval table, and cleared the middle of the room; then he arranged six chairs opposite each other, so that the coffin could stand on their beds.
"You niver seed such a length as he is!" said the miner, and watching anxiously as he worked.
Paul went to the bay window and looked out.