nken look which follows upon
watching and sorrow. His brow was knit, and his whole face had an
expression of weariness and pain. Gyp was evidently uneasy, for he sat
on his haunches, resting his nose on his master's stretched-out leg, and
dividing the time between licking the hand that hung listlessly down and
glancing with a listening air towards the door. The poor dog was
hungry and restless, but would not leave his master, and was waiting
impatiently for some change in the scene. It was owing to this feeling
on Gyp's part that, when Lisbeth came into the workshop and advanced
towards Adam as noiselessly as she could, her intention not to awaken
him was immediately defeated; for Gyp's excitement was too great to find
vent in anything short of a sharp bark, and in a moment Adam opened his
eyes and saw his mother standing before him. It was not very unlike his
dream, for his sleep had been little more than living through again, in
a fevered delirious way, all that had happened since daybreak, and his
mother with her fretful grief was present to him through it all. The
chief difference between the reality and the vision was that in
his dream Hetty was continually coming before him in bodily
presence--strangely mingling herself as an actor in scenes with which
she had nothing to do. She was even by the Willow Brook; she made his
mother angry by coming into the house; and he met her with her smart
clothes quite wet through, as he walked in the rain to Treddleston, to
tell the coroner. But wherever Hetty came, his mother was sure to follow
soon; and when he opened his eyes, it was not at all startling to see
her standing near him.

"Eh, my lad, my lad!" Lisbeth burst out immediately, her wailing impulse
returning, for grief in its freshness feels the need of associating its
loss and its lament with every change of scene and incident, "thee'st
got nobody now but thy old mother to torment thee and be a burden to
thee. Thy poor feyther 'ull ne'er anger thee no more; an' thy mother
may's well go arter him--the sooner the better--for I'm no good to
nobody now. One old coat 'ull do to patch another, but it's good for
nought else. Thee'dst like to ha' a wife to mend thy clothes an' get thy
victual, better nor thy old mother. An' I shall be nought but cumber,
a-sittin' i' th' chimney-corner. (Adam winced and moved uneasily; he
dreaded, of all things, to hear his mother speak of Hetty.) But if
thy feyther had lived, he'd ne'er ha' w