'Will she be kind to _them?_' he said sharply, which a motion of the head towards the children, first towards David, who sat drooping on his father's bed, where for some ten or twelve hours now he had remained glued, refusing to touch either breakfast or dinner, and then towards Louie, who was on the floor by the fire, with her rag dolls, which she was dressing up with smiles and chatter in a strange variety of finery. 'If not, she shan't have 'em. There's time yet.'
But the grey hue was already on his cheek, his feet were already cold. The nurse in the far corner of the room, looking up as he spoke, gave him mentally 'an hour or two.'
Reuben flushed and sat bolt upright, his gnarled and wrinkled hands trembling on his knees.
'She _shall_ be kind to 'em,' he said with energy. 'Gie 'em to us, Sandy. Yo wouldna send your childer to strangers?'
The clannish instinct in Sandy responded. Besides, in spite of his last assertion, he knew very well there was nothing else to be done.
'There's money,' he said slowly. 'She'll not need to stint them of anything. This is a poor place,' for at the word 'money' he noticed that Reuben's eyes travelled with an awakening shrewdness over the barely furnished room; 'but it was the debts first, and then I had to put by for the children. None of the shop-folk or the fellows at the club ever came here. We lived as we liked. There's an insurance, and there's some savings, and there's some commission money owing from the firm, and there's a bit investment Mr. Gurney (naming the head partner) helped me into last year. There's altogether about six hundred pound. You'll get the interest of it for the children; it'll go into Gurneys', and they'll give five per cent. for it. Mr. Gurney's been very kind. He came here yesterday, and he's got it all. You go to him.'
He stopped for weakness. Reuben's eyes were round. Six hundred pounds! Who'd have thought it of Sandy?--after that bad lot of a wife, and he not thirty!
'You must settle,' said the father, with a long sigh. 'Depends on him what he turns to. If he wants to farm, he can learn with you, and put in his money when he sees an opening. For the bit farms in our part there'd be enough. But I'm feeart'(the old Derbyshire word slipped out unawares)'he'll not stay in the country. He's too sharp, and you mustn't force him. If you see he's not the farming sort, when he's thirteen or fourteen or so, take Mr. Gurney's advice, and bind him to a trade. Mr. Gurney'll pay the premiums for him and he can have the balance of the money--for I've left him to manage it all, for himself and Louie too--when he's fit to set up for himself.--You and Hannah'll deal honest wi 'em?'