Page:Her Benny - Silas K Hocking (Warne, 1890).djvu/72

48 open, and his children enter; but the door did not open, and his children never came.

"I wouldna a-minded so much," he said, "if I hadna a-wolloped poor little Nell;" and he vowed with a terrible oath that "he would treat 'em better in t' future, if he ever had the chance." But when the clock in the steeple not far away struck nine, he started up, muttering to himself, "I canna stand this: I wonder what's comed to me? If t' bairns would come home, I reckon I'd be all right." But the bairns did not come, and he started out to get a glass, to help him to drown remorse.

His mates tried to rally him, but they had to confess that it was "no go"; and when at eleven o'clock he left them at the comer of the street, and once more directed his steps towards Addler's Hall, they touched their foreheads significantly to each other, and whispered it as their opinion "that Dick Bates was a-goin' wrong in his noddle, and was above a bit luny."

When he reached his home, he opened the door with a beating heart. All was silent, save the heavy breathing of his wife in the room above. He went to the dark comer where his children slept, and felt with his hands; but the bed, such as it was, was empty, and with a groan he turned away and hid his face in his hands. And again his past life came back to him more vividly than it had done for years. "I mun go an' look for 'em," he said. "I shall see 'em floating in one o' the docks, as I did last night in my