ident had taken place. The rick lay, a
shapeless mound upon the earth, with a long thick pole protruding from
it, which had formerly supported the tarpaulin drawn across it in case
of rain. Four men were walking slowly away, one shoulder humped, one
hanging, and betwixt them they bore a formless clay-coloured bundle.
He might have been a clod of the earth that he tilled, so passive, so
silent, still brown, for death itself could not have taken the burn from
his skin, but with patient, bovine eyes looking out heavily from under
half-closed lids. He breathed jerkily, but he neither cried out nor
groaned. There was something almost brutal and inhuman in his absolute
stolidity. He asked no sympathy, for his life had been without it. It
was a broken tool rather than an injured man.

"Can I do anything, father?"

"No, lass, no. This is no place for you. I've sent for the doctor. He'll
be here soon."

"But where are they taking him?"

"To the loft where he sleeps."

"I'm sure he's welcome to my room, father."

"No, no, lass. Better leave it alone."

But the little group were passing as they spoke, and the injured lad had
heard the girl's words.

"Thank ye kindly, Missey," he murmured, with a little flicker of life,
and then sank back again into his stolidity and his silence.

Well, a farm hand is a useful thing, but what is a man to do with one
who has an injured spine and half his ribs smashed. Farmer Foster shook
his head and scratched his chin as he listened to the doctor's report.

"He can't get better?"

"No."

"Then we had better move him."

"Where to?"

"To the work'us hospital. He came from there just this time eleven
years. It'll be like going home to him."

"I fear that he is going home," said the doctor gravely. "But it's out
of the question to move him now. He must lie where he is for better or
for worse."

And it certainly looked for worse rather than for better. In a little
loft above the stable he was stretched upon a tiny blue pallet which
lay upon the planks. Above were the gaunt rafters, hung with saddles,
harness, old scythe blades--the hundred things which droop, like bats,
from inside such buildings. Beneath them upon two pegs hung his own
pitiable wardrobe, the blue shirt and the grey, the stained trousers,
and the muddy coat. A gaunt chaff-cutting machine stood at his head, and
a great bin of the chaff behind it. He lay very quiet, still dumb, still
uncomplaining, his eyes fixed upo