"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.