Then he got up himself to his seat by the
driver's side; the last good-bye was spoken, the weeping wife being
gently led away by her friends, and the cart rattled away down the
street. Turning into the Salisbury road it was soon out of sight over
the near down, but half an hour later it emerged once more into sight
beyond the great dip, and the villagers who had remained standing about
at the same spot watched it crawling like a beetle up the long white
road on the slope of the vast down beyond.
Johnnie was now lying coiled up on his rug, his face hidden between his
arms, abandoned to grief, sobbing aloud. Lampard, sitting athwart the
seat so as to keep an eye on him, burst out at last: "Be a man, Johnnie,
and stop your crying! 'Tis making things no better by taking on like
that. What do you say, Daddy?"
"I say nought," snapped the old man, and for a while they proceeded in
silence except for those heartrending sobs. As they approached the old
thorn tree, near the top of the long slope, Johnnie grew more and more
agitated, his whole frame shaking with his sobbing. Again the constable
rebuked him, telling him that 'twas a shame for a man to go on like
that.
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