The old man was sitting on the top stair, supported sideways by the wall, his head hanging forward, and his hands dropping over his knees, in a dead faint.

At the sight all four children ran helter-skelter into the lane, shouting ‘Mammy!  Mammy!’ in an anguish of fright.  Their clamour was caught by the fierce north wind, which had begun to sweep the hill, and was borne along till it reached the ears of a woman who was sitting sewing in a cottage some fifty yards further up the lane.  She stepped to her door, opened it and listened.

‘It’s at Bessie’s,’ she said; ‘whativer’s wrong wi’ the childer?’

By this time Arthur had begun to run towards her.  Darkness was falling rapidly, but she could distinguish his small figure against the snow, and his halting gait.

‘What is it, Arthur?—­what is it, lammie?’

’O Cousin Mary Anne!  Cousin Mary Anne!  It’s Uncle John, an ‘ee’s dead!’

She ran like the wind at the words, catching at the child’s hand in the dark, and dragging him along with her.

‘Where is he, Arthur?—­don’t take on, honey!’

The child hurried on with her, sobbing, and she was soon on the stairs beside the unconscious John.

Mary Anne looked with amazement at the cupboard and the open box.  Then she laid the old man on the floor, her gentle face working with the effort to remember what the doctor had once told her of the best way of dealing with persons in a faint.  She got water, and she sent Arthur to a neighbour for brandy.

‘Where’s your mother, child?’ she asked, as she dispatched him.

‘Don know,’ repeated the boy, stupidly.

‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, she’s never at Dawson’s again!’ groaned Mary Anne to herself; ’she wor there last night, an the night afore that.  An her mother’s brother lyin like this in ‘er house!’

He was so long in coming round that her ignorance began to fear the worst.  But just as she was telling the eldest girl to put on her hat and jacket and run for the doctor, poor John revived.

He struggled to a sitting posture, looked wildly at her and at the box.  As his eye caught the two sovereigns still lying at the bottom, he gave a cry of rage, and got upon his feet with a mighty effort.

’Where’s Bessie, I tell yer?  Where’s the huzzy gone?  I’ll have the law on ’er!  I’ll make ‘er give it up—­by the Lord, I will!’

‘John, what is it?—­John, my dear!’ cried Mary Anne, supporting him, and terrified lest he should pitch headlong down the stairs.

’Yo ‘elp me down,’ he said, violently.  ’We’ll find ’er—­we’ll wring it out ov ’er—­the mean thievin vagabond!  Changin suverins, ’as she? we’ll soon know about that—­yo ‘elp me down, I tell yer.’

And with her assistance he hobbled down the stairs, hardly able to stand.  Mary Anne’s eyes were starting out of her head with fear and agitation, and the children were staring at the old man as he came tottering into the kitchen, when a sound at the outer door made them all turn.