At six o'clock, with the aid of the charwoman, she laid him out; then she went round the dreary London village to the registrar and the doctor.
At nine o'clock to the cottage on Scargill Street came another wire:
`William died last night. Let father come, bring money.'
Annie, Paul, and Arthur were at home; Mr Morel was gone to work. The three children said not a word. Annie began to whimper with fear; Paul set off for his father.
It was a beautiful day. At Brinsley pit the white steam melted slowly in the sunshine of a soft blue sky; the wheels of the headstocks twinkled high up; the screen, shuffling its coal into the trucks, made a busy noise.
`I want my father; he's got to go to London,' said the boy to the first man he met on the bank.
`Tha wants Walter Morel? Go in theer an' tell Joe Ward.'
Paul went into the little top office.
`I want my father; he's got to go to London.'
`Thy feyther? Is he down? What's his name?'
`Mr Morel.'
`What, Walter? Is owt amiss?'
`He's got to go to London.'
The man went to the telephone and rang up the bottom office.
`Walter Morel's wanted. Number 42, Hard. Summat's amiss; there's his lad here.'
Then he turned round to Paul.
`He'll be up in a few minutes,' he said.
Paul wandered out to the pit-top. He watched the chair come up, with its waggon of coal. The great iron cage sank back on its rest, a full carfle was hauled off, an empty tram run on to the chair, a bell ting'ed somewhere, the chair heaved, then dropped like a stone.
Paul did not realize William was dead; it was impossible, with such a bustle going on. The puller-off swung the small truck on to the turn-table, another man ran with it along the bank down the curving lines.
`And William is dead, and my mother's in London, and what will she be doing?' the boy asked himself, as if it were a conundrum.
He watched chair after chair come up, and still no father. At last, standing beside a waggon, a man's form! The chair sank on its rests, Morel stepped off. He was slightly lame from an accident.
`Is it thee, Paul? Is 'e worse?'
`You've got to go to London.'