As Mrs. Holl turned to leave, Mr. Walker roused himself a little, “Thank you,” he said, faintly; “Thank you, you are very good; will you send the Policeman, the one I have met at your house, here? I want him to search—,” and here he stopped. But Mrs. Holl understood him; he wanted him to search for the body, and with a nod of assent, for she could not speak, she turned and left him to his great sorrow.
Mrs. Holl hurried home, and then sitting down before the fire, and covering her head again with her apron, she gave way to a great fit of crying, to the astonishment and alarm of the cripple lad who was the only inmate of the house.
“What is the matter, mother! what is the matter? Is anything wrong with father or the children?”
Mrs. Holl shook her head, but continued to cry, silently rocking herself backwards and forwards in her chair.
The cripple hastily wheeled his box to her side. “What is it, mother? you frighten me.”
“Oh James!” she sobbed, finding words at last; “Carry Walker, poor girl!”
“Yes mother, yes; what of her?” the cripple panted out.
“She has been deceived, my boy, by some villain, and has drowned herself.”
The cripple gave a cry as of sharp pain. His mother looked round, and read his secret in his face.
“Oh, my poor boy, my poor boy!” she cried, kneeling by his box, and putting her arm round him. “To think of this. But it could not have been, James; she never could have been for you. Don't take on, my poor lad.”
“Oh mother, I never thought it!” he cried; “I never thought it; but I loved her so, loved her with all my life, and to think—oh Carry, Carry!” he broke out wildly; “oh that I who loved you so, was helpless to protect you! oh that I must sit here and be able to do nothing to avenge you—to think that you, so good, so kind, so gentle, are gone—oh mother, mother! I shall go mad!”
In vain Mrs. Holl endeavoured to calm the lad; his wild excitement, his grief, and his sense of helplessness, turned his brain; hour after hour he raved, and before night was in a state of raging fever. Mrs. Holl sent a neighbour off for a doctor, who ordered his hair to be cut off, and ice to be placed on his temples, but for the next few days his life was despaired of, and John was obliged to stay at home to assist Sarah with the delirious lad, and enable her to slip away for half an hour three times a day to the broken-hearted old man in New Street.