After it was done she sat and chatted for an hour. Then she
said:
"I must be off now, and I think, Bill, you'd best be going soon
too, and let Maister Ned have a good night of it. I will make him
up his bed on the rugs; and I will warrant, after all the trouble
he has gone through, he will sleep like a top."
CHAPTER IX: A PAINFUL TIME
When Ned was left alone he rolled himself up in the blankets, placed
a pillow which Polly had brought him under his head, and lay and
looked at the fire; but it was not until the flames had died down,
and the last red glow had faded into blackness that he fell off to
sleep.
His thoughts were bitter in the extreme. He pictured to himself
the change which would take place in his home life with Mulready
the manufacturer, the tyrant of the workmen, ruling over it. For
himself he doubted not that he would be able to hold his own.
"He had better not try on his games with me," he muttered savagely.
"Though I am only sixteen he won't find it easy to bully me; but
of course Charlie and Lucy can't defend themselves. However, I will
take care of them. Just let him be unkind to them, and see what
comes of it! As to mother, she must take what she gets, at least
she deserves to. Only to think of it! only to think of it! Oh, how
bitterly she will come to repent! How could she do it!
"And with father only dead a year! But I must stand by her, too.
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