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And then he always went to bed very early, often before the
children. There was nothing remaining for him to stay up for, when he
had finished tinkering, and had skimmed the headlines of the newspaper.
And the children felt secure when their father was in bed. They lay and
talked softly a while. Then they started as the lights went suddenly
sprawling over the ceiling from the lamps that swung in the hands of the
colliers tramping by outside, going to take the nine o'clock shift. They
listened to the voices of the men, imagined them dipping down into the
dark valley. Sometimes they went to the window and watched the three
or four lamps growing tinier and tinier, swaying down the fields in the
darkness. Then it was a joy to rush back to bed and cuddle closely in
the warmth.
Paul was rather a delicate boy, subject to bronchitis. The others were
all quite strong; so this was another reason for his mother's difference
in feeling for him. One day he came home at dinner-time feeling ill. But
it was not a family to make any fuss.


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