LITMIR.BIZ

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that time his heart had beat quick with excitement. Now he sat in a little storm of agitation, of which nothing was betrayed by his gloomy, pondering expression, but some of which was communicated to Helena by the increasing pressure of his hand, which adjusted itself delicately in a stronger and stronger stress over her fingers and palm. By some movement he became aware that her hand was uncomfortable. He relaxed. She sighed, as if restless and dissatisfied. She wondered what he was thinking of. He smiled quietly.

      ‘The Babes in the Wood,’ he teased.

      Helena laughed, with a sound of tears. In the tree overhead some bird began to sing, in spite of the rain, a broken evening song.

      ‘That little beggar sees it’s a hopeless case, so he reminds us of heaven. But if he’s going to cover us with yew-leaves, he’s set himself a job.’

      Helena laughed again, and shivered. He put his arm round her, drawing her nearer his warmth. After this new and daring move neither spoke for a while.

      ‘The rain continues,’ he said.

      ‘And will do,’ she added, laughing.

      ‘Quite content,’ he said.

      The bird overhead chirruped loudly again.

      ‘“Strew on us roses, roses,”’ quoted Byrne, adding after a while, in wistful mockery: ‘“And never a sprig of yew”— eh?’

      Helena made a small sound of tenderness and comfort for him, and weariness for herself. She let herself sink a little closer against him.

      ‘Shall it not be so — no yew?’ he murmured.

      He put his left hand, with which he had been breaking larch-twigs, on her chilled wrist. Noticing that his fingers were dirty, he held them up.

      ‘I shall make marks on you,’ he said.

      ‘They will come off,’ she replied.

      ‘Yes, we come clean after everything. Time scrubs all sorts of scars off us.’

      ‘Some scars don’t seem to go,’ she smiled.

      And she held out her other arm, which had been pressed warm against his side. There, just above the wrist, was the red sun-inflammation from last year. Byrne regarded it gravely.

      ‘But it’s wearing off — even that,’ he said wistfully.

      Helena put her arms found him under his coat. She was cold. He felt a hot wave of joy suffuse him. Almost immediately she released him, and took off her hat.

      ‘That is better,’ he said.

      ‘I was afraid of the pins,’ said she.

      ‘I’ve been dodging them for the last hour,’ he said, laughing, as she put her arms under his coat again for warmth.

      She laughed, and, making a small, moaning noise, as if of weariness and helplessness, she sank her head on his chest. He put down his cheek against hers.

      ‘I want rest and warmth,’ she said, in her dull tones.

      ‘All right!’ he murmured.

      Sons and Lovers

       Table of Contents

       PART ONE

       Chapter I. The Early Married Life of the Morels

       Chapter II. The Birth of Paul, and Another Battle

       Chapter III. The Casting Off of Morel—The Taking On of William

       Chapter IV. The Young Life of Paul

       Chapter V. Paul Launches Into Life

       Chapter VI. Death in the Family

       PART TWO

       Chapter VII. Lad-and-Girl Love

       Chapter VIII. Strife in Love

       Chapter IX. Defeat of Miriam

       Chapter X. Clara

       Chapter XI. The Test on Miriam

       Chapter XII. Passion

       Chapter XIII. Baxter Dawes

       Chapter XIV. The Release

       Chapter XV. Derelict

      PART ONE

       Table of Contents

      Chapter I

       The Early Married Life of the Morels

       Table of Contents

      “The Bottoms” succeeded to “Hell Row”. Hell Row was a block of thatched, bulging cottages that stood by the brookside on Greenhill Lane. There lived the colliers who worked in the little gin-pits two fields away. The brook ran under the alder trees, scarcely soiled by these small mines, whose coal was drawn to the surface by donkeys that plodded wearily in a circle round a gin. And all over the countryside were these same pits, some of which had been worked in the time of Charles II, the few colliers and the donkeys burrowing down like ants into the earth, making queer mounds and little black places among the corn-fields and the meadows. And the cottages of these coal-miners, in blocks and pairs here and there, together with odd farms and homes of the stockingers, straying over the parish, formed the village of Bestwood.

      Then, some sixty years ago, a sudden change took place, gin-pits were elbowed aside by the large mines of the financiers. The coal and iron field of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire was discovered. Carston, Waite and Co. appeared. Amid tremendous excitement, Lord Palmerston formally opened the company's first mine at Spinney Park, on the edge of Sherwood Forest.

      About this time the notorious Hell Row, which through growing old had acquired an evil reputation, was burned down, and much dirt was cleansed away.

      Carston, Waite & Co. found they had struck on a good thing, so, down the valleys of the brooks from Selby and Nuttall, new mines were sunk, until soon there were six pits working. From Nuttall, high up on the sandstone among the woods, the railway ran, past the ruined priory of the Carthusians and past Robin Hood's Well, down to Spinney Park, then on to Minton, a large mine among corn-fields; from Minton across

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