CHAPTER XXXV
The Widow's Son
While painting the conservatory in Sweater's house in bitterly cold weather Owen caught such a severe chill that he was obliged to take his overcoat out of pawn. Although he had been luckier than most of his mates in getting odd jobs at Rushton's, he had never been able to save any money. All through the summer most of his wages had gone to pay off arrears of rent and other debts, and now that the winter was upon them and work was very scarce his Saturday pay amounted to half a sovereign, seven-and-six, five shillings, or even less.
One morning he did not get to the yard till ten o'clock and felt so ill that he would not have gone at all if they had not been in sore need of all the money he could earn. The least exertion brought on a violent fit of coughing, and it was only by an almost superhuman effort of will that he managed to get through his work. When he arrived at the yard he found Bert White cleaning out the dirty pots in the paint shop. The noise he made with the scraping knife prevented him hearing Owen's approach, and the latter stood watching him for some minutes without speaking. The stone floor of the paint shop was damp and slimy and the whole place as chilly as a tomb. The boy was trembling with cold, and he looked pitifully undersized and frail as he bent over his work with an old apron girt about him. Although it was so cold he had turned back the sleeves of his jacket to keep them clean, or to prevent them getting any dirtier, for like the rest of his attire they were thickly encrusted with dried paint of many colours.
He was wearing a man's coat and a pair of skimpy, boy's trousers, and his thin legs appearing under the big jacket gave him a grotesque appearance. There were smears of paint on his face, and his hands and finger nails were grimed with it. But most pitiful of all were his dreadful hob-nailed boots, the
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