Hanna198

192

When the cart had bumped out of the close, Andrew
crept down to his mother's door and listened. He heard
her laboured painful breathing and a stifled groan which
filled him with fear. Silently he tip-toed back to the
kitchen, afraid that his mother might hear him, and call
on him. Several times he stole backwards and forwards
between the fire and the passage to his mother's room.
Then at last he heard the ’wheels of the cart on the close,
and running to the door saw Agnes Sampson clambering
down from the cart. She came into the kitchen, and
pausing only to tell Andrew to fill the kettle and
lower it on the crane, hurried down the house to Sarah's
room. That evening Sarah gave birth to a daughter.