By-and-by, a cluster of cottages loomed ahead—a choppy pool of black slate roofs, wanly a-glimmer in the wet. As he entered the village, a group of hard-featured men threw him a curt chorus of greetings, to which he raised his stick in response, mechanically.
He mounted the hill. Three furnace-chimneys craned their thin necks to grime the sky with a dribbling, smoky breath; high on a bank of coal-dust, blurred silhouettes of trucks stood waiting in forlorn strings; women, limp, with unkempt hair, and loose, bedraggled skirts, stood round the doorways in gossiping groups.
"Which is Mrs. Matheson's?" he stopped to ask.
"There—oop there, Mr. Burkett—by yon ash—where them childer's standin'," they answered, all speaking together, eagerly. "Look ye! that be Mrs. Matheson herself."
Alec went up to the woman. His face clouded a little, and the puffs from his pipe came briskly in rapid succession.
"Mrs. Matheson, I've only just heard——Tell me, how did it happen?" he asked gently.
She was a stout, red-faced woman, and her eyes were all bloodshot with much crying. She wiped them hastily with the corner of her apron before answering.
"It was there, Mr. Burkett, by them rails. He was jest playin' aboot in't'road wi' Arnison's childer. At half-past one, t'grandmoother stepped across to fetch me a jug o' fresh water an' she see'd him settin' in door there. Then—mabbee twenty minutes later—t' rain coome on an' I thought to go to fetch him in. But I could'na see na sign of him anywhere. We looked oop and doon, and thought, mabbee, he'd toddled roond to t' back. An' then, all at once, Dan Arnison called to us that he was leein' in't' water, doon in beck-pool. An' Dan ran straight doon, an'carried