THE ENGLISH REVIEW

Then she lighted a candle and went into the tiny room.
The air was cold and damp, but she could not make a fire, there
was no fireplace. She set down the candle and looked round.
The candlelight glittered on the lustre-glasses, on the two
vases that held some of the pink chrysanthemums, and on
the dark mahogany. There was a cold, deathly smell of
chrysanthemums in the room. Elizabeth stood looking at the
flowers. She turned away, and calculated whether there would
be room to lay him on the floor, between the couch and the
chiffonier. She pushed the chairs aside. There would be
room to lay him down and to step round him. Then she
fetched the old red tablecloth, and another old cloth, spreading
them down to save her bit of carpet. She shivered on leaving
the parlour ; so, from the dresser-drawer she took a clean shirt
and put it at the fire to air. All the time her mother-in-law
was rocking herself in the chair and moaning.

"You'll have to move from there, mother," said Elizabeth.
"They'll be bringing him in. Come in the rocker."

The old mother rose mechanically, and seated herself by the
fire, continuing to lament. Elizabeth went into the pantry for
another candle, and there, in the little penthouse under the naked
tiles, she heard them coming. She stood still in the pantry
doorway, listening. She heard them pass the end of the house,
and come awkwardly down the three steps, a jumble of shuffling
footsteps and muttering voices. The old woman was silent.
The men were in the yard.

Then Elizabeth heard Matthews, the manager of the pit,
say : "You go in first, Jim. Mind !"

The door came open, and the two women saw a collier
backing into the room, holding one end of a stretcher, on which
they could see the nailed pit-boots of the dead man. The two
carriers halted, the man at the head stooping at the lintel of
the door.

"Wheer will you have him ?" asked the manager, a short,
white-bearded old man.

Elizabeth roused herself and came from the pantry carry-
ing the unlighted candle.

"In the parlour," she said.

"In there, Jim !" pointed the manager, and the carriers
backed round into the tiny room. The coat with which they
had covered the body fell off as they awkwardly turned through
the two doorways, and the women saw their man, naked to
the waist, lying stripped for work. Immediately the old woman
began to moan in a low voice, "My boy !"

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