She screamed with fright rather than with pain, but Dick did not let go
till the danger was past; and his clothes, being woollen, did not catch.
There was a scuffle of footsteps as Mrs. Fowley and two other women
came in with a great outcry. And the sobbing child was wrapped in a
big shawl, and the doctor sent for.
And her mother, to relieve her own fears, began as usual to upbraid
Dick.
"It's all your fault, you good-for-nothing pauper! Why didn't you look
after the child?"
"I thought you had her, she went out with you," he said, trembling with
dread of more than a scolding, and scarcely able to bear the pain in
his poor burned hands.
"Then you'd no business to think," she screamed. "What you've got to
do is to mind the children, and anything else I've a mind to order you
to do. Three years and better we've kep' you out of charity, and you
don't earn shoe leather yet. Where's the baby?"
"Asleep in the garden, I put her down under the tree when I heard Susy
cry out."
"Then go and fetch her this minute. And a fine hiding you'll get when
Fowley comes home. Susy's his favourite out of 'em all."
Dick looked appealingly at the neighbours and muttered, "I--I can't
carry her--my hands----"
"Bless me, there's work for the doctor here," said one of the women in
consternation, as she looked at his poor scorched fingers.
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