Bessie ran across the green and began to climb the hill at a rapid pace.  Her thin woolen shawl blown back by the wind left her arms and bosom exposed.  But the effects of the spirit in her veins prevented any sense of cold, though it was a bitter night.

Once or twice, as she toiled up the hill, she gave a loud sudden sob.

‘Oh my God!’ she said to herself.  ‘My God!’

When she was halfway up, she met a neighbour.

‘Have yer seen Isaac?’ Bessie asked her, panting.

’Ee’s at the club, arn’t ‘ee?’ said the woman.  ’Well they won’t be up yet.  Jim tolt me as Muster Perris’—­’Muster Perris’ was the vicar of Clinton Magna—­’’ad got a strange gen’leman stayin with ’im, and was goin to take him into the club to-night to speak to ’em.  ’Ee’s a bishop, they ses—­someun from furrin parts.’

Bessie threw her good-night and climbed on.

When she reached the cottage the lamp was flaming on the table and the fire was bright.  Her lame boy had done all she had told him, and her miserable heart softened.  She hurriedly put out some food for Isaac.  Then she lit a candle and went up to look at the children.

They were all asleep in the room to the right of the stairs—­the two little boys in one bed, the two little girls in the other, each pair huddled together against the cold, like dormice in a nest.  Then she looked, conscience-stricken, at the untidiness of the room.  She had bought the children a wonderful number of new clothes lately, and the family being quite unused to such abundance, there was no place to keep them in.  A new frock was flung down in a corner just as it had been taken off; the kitten was sleeping on Arthur’s last new jacket; a smart hat with a bunch of poppies in it was lying about the floor; and under the iron beds could be seen a confusion of dusty boots, new and old.  The children were naturally reckless like their mother, and they had been getting used to new things.  What excited them now, more than the acquisitions themselves, was that their mother had strictly forbidden them ever to show any of their new clothes to their father.  If they did, she would beat them well, she said.  That they understood; and life was thereby enriched, not only by new clothes but by a number of new emotions and terrors.

If Bessie noted the state of the room, she made no attempt to mend it.  She smoothed back the hair from the boys’ foreheads with a violent, shaky hand, and kissed them all, especially Arthur.  Then she went out and closed the door behind her.

Outside she stood a moment on the tiny landing—­listening.  Not a sound; but the cottage walls were thin.  If any one came along the lane with heavy boots she must hear them.  Very like he would be half an hour yet.

She ran down the stairs and shut the door at the bottom of them, opening into the kitchen.  It had no key or she would have locked it; and in her agitation, her state of clouded brain, she forgot the outer door altogether.  Hurrying up again, she sat down on the topmost step, putting her candle on the boards beside her.  The cupboard at the stair-head where John had left his money was close to her left hand.