The yellow book: an illustrated quarterly (3.1894)

iy6 A Study in Sentimentality
By-and-by, a cluster of cottages loomed ahead—a choppy pool
of black slate roofs, wanly a-glimmer in the wet. As he entered
the village, a group of hard-featured men threw him a curt
chorus of greetings, to which he raised his stick in response,
mechanically.
He mounted the hill. Three furnace-chimneys craned their
thin necks to grime the sky with a dribbling, smoky breath ;
high on a bank of coal-dust, blurred silhouettes of trucks stood
waiting in forlorn strings ; women, limp, with unkempt hair,
and loose, bedraggled skirts, stood round the doorways in gossiping
groups.
" Which is Mrs. Matheson's ? " he stopped to ask.
"There—oop there, Mr. Burkett—by yon ash—where them
childer's standin'," they answered, all speaking together, eagerly.
" Look ye ! that be Mrs. Matheson herself."
Alec went up to the woman. His face clouded a little, and the
puffs from his pipe came briskly in rapid succession.
"Mrs. Matheson, I've only just heard-Tell me, how did
it happen ? " he asked gently.
She was a stout, red-faced woman, and her eyes were all bloodshot
with much crying. She wiped them hastily with the corner of
her apron before answering.
" It was there, Mr. Burkett, by them rails. He was jest playin'
aboot in t' road wi' Arnison's childer. At halLpast one, t' grand-
moother stepped across to fetch me a jug o' fresh water an'
she see'd him settin' in door there. Then—mabbee twenty minutes
later—t' rain coome on an' I thought to go to fetch him in.
But I could'na see na sign of him anywhere. We looked oop
and doon, and thought, mabbee, he'd toddled roond to t' back.
An' then, all at once, Dan Arnison called to us that he was leein'
in t' water, doon in beck-pool. An' Dan ran straight doon, an'
carried