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The room was quite dark, but somehow she knew that her father and mother were awake, and the next moment she heard them speaking.

Her father said:

"You go to sleep like a good girl. I tell you 'tis näun—you've ate unaccustomed, and have a pain in your stomach. That's all."

"I know wot I'm talking about, as I should ought to know by this time. Be a man, Spray, and git up and fetch Mrs. Ades."

"I tell you 'tis näun. You've had false tokens before this, and I'm heavy wud sleep."

Her mother groaned.

"Have done," said her father; "if you'll let me git two hours' rest, I'll send for Mrs. Ades in the marnun."

"That'll be too late. Spray, fur God's sake . . ."

Her father rose up, stretching and grumbling to himself. In the darkness she heard him pulling on his trousers and his boots. Then he clumped out, and Susan buried her head under the coverlet, striving for a wink more sleep before Mrs. Ades the midwife came and turned them all out into the cold.

§ 13

It was two nights before Susan slept in her warm bed again. That evening, when she came home from Horn Reed—where since her rejection at the hiring fair, she had been picking stones off the fields at a shilling a week—she found the door of the cottage shut against her; and when she lifted the latch, the midwife came running out, telling her to be off.