The District Elder was not in, nor the clerk, but only the clerk’s assistant—a clever lad whom I knew. I asked him about the woman’s husband, and why, being the only man in the family, he had been taken as a conscript.
The clerk’s assistant looked up the particulars, and replied that the woman’s husband was not the only man in the family: he had a brother.
“Then why did she say he was the only one?”
“She lied! They always do,” replied he, with a smile.
I made some inquiries about other matters I had to attend to, and then the doctor returned from visiting his patient, and we drove towards the village in which the soldier’s wife lived. But before we were out of the first village, a girl of about twelve came quickly across the road towards us.
“I suppose you’re wanted?” I said to the doctor.
“No, it’s your Honour I want,” said the girl to me.
“What is it?”
“I’ve come to your Honour, as mother is dead, and we are left orphans—five of us. Help us! … Think of our needs!”
“Where do you come from?”
The girl pointed to a brick house, not badly built.
“From here … that is our house. Come and see for yourself!”
I got out of the sledge, and went towards the house. A woman came out and asked me in. She was the orphans’ aunt. I entered a large, clean room; all the children were there, four of them: besides the eldest girl—two