Colin's mouth trembled.
"It's all right, Col-Col, you're coming." Jerrold held out his hand.
"Well," said Eliot, "if he crumples up _you_ can carry him."
"I can," said Jerrold.
"So can I," said Anne.
"Nobody," said Colin "shall carry me. I can walk."
Eliot went on grumbling while Colin trotted happily beside them. "You're
a fearful ass, Jerrold. You're simple ruining that kid. He thinks he can
come butting into everything. Here's the whole afternoon spoiled for all
three of us. He can't walk. You'll see he'll drop out in the first
mile."
"I shan't, Jerrold."
And he didn't. He struggled on down the fields to Upper Speed and along
the river-meadows to Lower Speed and Hayes Mill, and from Hayes Mill to
High Slaughter. It was when they started to walk back that his legs
betrayed him, slackening first, then running, because running was easier
than walking, for a change. Then dragging. Then being dragged between
Anne and Jerrold (for he refused to be carried). Then staggering,
stumbling, stopping dead; his child's mouth drooping.
Then Jerrold carried him on his back with his hands clasped under
Colin's soft hips. Colin's body slipped every minute and had to be
jerked up again; and when it slipped his arms tightened round Jerrold's
neck, strangling him.
At last Jerrold, too, staggered and stumbled and stopped dead.
"I'll take him," said Eliot. He forbore, nobly, to say "I told you so."
And by turns they carried him, from the valley of the Windlode to the
valley of the Speed, past Hayes Mill, through Lower Speed, Upper Speed,
and up the fields to Wyck Manor. Then up the stairs to the schoolroom,
pursued by their mother's cries.
"Oh Col-Col, my little Col-Col! What have you done to him, Eliot?"
Eliot bore it like a lamb.
Only after they had left Colin in the schoolroom, he turned on Jerrold.
"Some day," he said, "Col-Col will be a perfect nuisance. Then you and
Anne'll have to pay for it."
"Why me and Anne?"
"Because you'll both be fools enough to keep on giving in to him."
"I suppose," said Jerrold bitterly, "you think you're clever."
Adeline came out and overheard him and made a scene in the gallery
before Pinkney, the footman, who was bringing in the schoolroom tea. She
said Eliot was clever enough and old enough to know better. They were
all old enough. And Jerrold said it was his fault, not Eliot's, and Anne
said it was hers, too. And Adeline declared that it was all their faults
and she would have to speak to their father. She kept it up long after
Eliot and Jerrold had retreated to the bathroom. If it had been anybody
but her little Col-Col. She wouldn't _have_ him dragged about the
country till he dropped.