Page:Stanwood Pier--Crashaw brothers.djvu/84

66 "I can’t help feeling that if you’d been in there instead of me, Wallace—”

“Now cut that right out,” said Wallace, and he laid his hand on the boy’s bare shoulder.

Charles moved up near them. The older-brother habit of authority asserted itself.

“Ned,” he said, “you’d better go in and take your bath; you’ll catch cold.”

Edward looked up, saw that it was Charles, and meekly obeyed.

“He’s taking it pretty hard,” said the lame fellow.

“It’s good of you to try to make it easy,” said Charles.

“Oh, well.” Wallace lingered as if wanting to add something; then he turned on his crutches and swung out of the door.

Charles Crashaw waited for his brother. When Edward was dressed, Charles took him by the arm and said, “We’ll go for a little  walk up the road—till the barge comes along  and takes me in.”

Outside, they came upon Blanchard, wrapped in a blanket and seated in a carriage.