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CHAPTER VI

Greta stayed with Mercy until noon that day, begging, entreating, and finally commanding her to lie quiet in bed, while she herself dressed and fed the child, and cooked and cleaned, in spite of the Laird Fisher's protestations. When all was done, and the old charcoal-burner had gone out on the hills, Greta picked up the little fellow in her arms and went to Mercy's room. Mercy was alert to every sound, and in an instant was sitting up in bed. Her face beamed, her parted lips smiled, her delicate fingers plucked nervously at the counterpane.

"How brightsome it is to-day, Greta," she said. "I'm sure the sun must be shining."

The window was open, and a soft breeze floated through the sun's rays into the room. Mercy inclined her head aside, and added, "Ah, you young rogue you; you are there, are you? Give him to me, the rascal!" The rogue was set down in his mother's arms, and she proceeded to punish his rascality with a shower of kisses. "How bonny his cheeks must be; they will be just like two ripe apples," and forthwith there fell another shower of kisses. Then she babbled over the little one, and lisped, and stammered, and nodded her head in his face, and blew little puffs of breath into his hair, and tickled him until he laughed and crowed and rolled and threw up his legs; and then she kissed his limbs and extremities in a way that mothers have, and finally imprisoned one of his feet by putting it ankle deep into her mouth. "Would you ever think a foot could be so tiny, Greta?" she said. And the little one plunged about and clambered laboriously up its mother's breast, and more than once plucked at the white bandage about her head. "No, no; Ralphie must not touch," said Mercy with sudden gravity. "Only think, Ralphie pet, one week – only one – ay, less – only six days now, and then – oh, then – " A long hug, and the little fellow's boisterous protest against the convulsive pressure abridged the mother's prophecy.

All at once Mercy's manner changed. She turned toward Greta, and said: "I will not touch the bandage, no, never; but if Ralphie tugged at it, and it fell – would that be breaking my promise?"

Greta saw what was in her heart.

"I'm afraid it would, dear," she said; but there was a tremor in her voice.

Mercy sighed audibly.

"Just think, it would be only Ralphie. The kind doctors could not be angry with my little child. I would say, 'It was the boy,' and they would smile and say, 'Ah, that is different.'"

"Give me the little one," said Greta with emotion.

Mercy drew the child closer, and there was a pause.

"I was very wrong, Greta," she said in a low tone. "Oh! you would not think what a fearful thing came into my mind a minute ago. Take my Ralphie. Just imagine, my own innocent baby tempted me."

As Greta reached across the bed to lift the child out of his mother's lap, the little fellow was struggling to communicate, by help of a limited vocabulary, some wondrous intelligence of recent events that somewhat overshadowed his little existence. "Puss – dat," many times repeated, was further explained by one chubby forefinger with its diminutive finger-nail pointed to the fat back of the other hand.

"He means that the little cat has scratched him," said Greta, "but bless the mite, he is pointing to the wrong hand."

"Puss – dat," continued the child, and peered up into his mother's sightless face. Mercy was all tears in an instant. She had borne yesterday's operation without a groan, but now the scratch on her child's hand went to her heart like a stab.

"Lie quiet, Mercy," said Greta; "it will be gone to-morrow."

"Go-on," echoed the little chap, and pointed out at the window.

"The darling, how he picks up every word!" said Greta.

"He means the horse," explained Mercy.

"Go-on – man – go-on," prattled the little one, with a child's indifference to all conversation except his own.

"Bless the love, he must remember the doctor and his horse," said Greta.

Mercy was putting her lips to the scratch on the little hand.

"Oh, Greta, I am very childish; but a mother's heart melts like butter."

"Batter," echoed the child, and wriggled out of Greta's arms to the ground, where he forthwith clambered on to the stool, and possessed himself of a slice of bread which lay on the table at the bedside. Then the fair curly head disappeared like a glint of sunlight through the door to the kitchen.

"What shall I care if other mothers see my child? I shall see him, too," said Mercy, and she sighed. "Yes," she added softly, "his hands and his eyes and his feet and his soft hair."

"Try to sleep an hour or two, dear," said Greta, "and then perhaps you may get up this afternoon – only perhaps, you know, but we'll see."

"Yes, Greta, yes. How kind you are."

"You will be far kinder to me some day," said Greta, very tenderly.

"No – ah, yes, I remember. How very selfish I am – I had quite forgotten. But then it is so hard not to be selfish when you are a mother. Only fancy, I never think of myself as Mercy now. No, never. I'm just Ralphie's mamma. When Ralphie came, Mercy must have died in some way. That's very silly, isn't it? Only it does seem true."

"Man – go-on – batter," was heard from the kitchen, mingled with the patter of tiny feet.

"Listen to him. How tricksome he is! And you should hear him cry, 'Oh!' You would say, 'That child has had an eye knocked out.' And then, in a minute, behold! he's laughing once more. There, I'm selfish again; but I will make up for it some day, if God is good."

"Yes, Mercy, He is good," said Greta.

Her arms rested on the door-jamb, and her head dropped on to it; her eyes swam. Did it seem at that moment as if God had been very good to these two women?

"Greta," said Mercy, and her voice fell to a whisper, "do you think Ralphie is like – anybody?"

"Yes, dear, he is like you."

There was a pause. Then Mercy's hand strayed from under the bedclothes and plucked at Greta's gown.

"Do you think," she asked, in a voice all but inaudible, "that father knows who it is?"

"I can not say – we have never told him."

"Nor I – he never asked, never once – only, you know, he gave up his work at the mine, and went back to the charcoal-pit when Ralphie came. But he never said a word."

Greta did not answer. There was another pause. Then Mercy said, in a stronger voice, "Will it be soon – the trial?"

"As soon as your eyes are better," said Greta, earnestly; "everything depends on your recovery."

At that moment the bedroom door was pushed open with a little lordly bang, and the great wee man entered with his piece of bread stuck rather insecurely on one prong of a fork.

"Toas," he explained complacently, "toas," and walked up to the empty grate and stretched his arm over the fender at the cold bars.

"Why, there's no fire for toast, you darling goose," said Greta, catching him in her arms, much to his masculine vexation.

Mercy had risen on an elbow, and her face was full of the yearning of the blind. Then she lay back.

"Never mind," she said to herself in a faltering voice, "let me lie quiet and think of all his pretty ways."

CHAPTER VII

Greta returned to the vicarage toward noon, and overtook Parson Christian and Peter in the lonnin, the one carrying a scythe over his shoulder, the other a bundle of rushes under his one arm. The parson was walking in silence under the noontide sun, his straw hat tipped back from his forehead and his eyes on the ground. He was busy with his own reflections. It was not until Greta had tripped up to his side and slipped his scythe-stone from its strap in the pole that the parson was awakened from his reverie.

"Great news, Greta – great news, my lass!" he said in answer to her liberal tender in exchange for his thoughts. "How well it's said, that he that diggeth a pit for another should look that he fall not into it himself."

"What news, Mr. Christian?" said Greta, and her color heightened.

"Well, we've been mowing the grass in the church-yard, Peter and I, and the scythe is old like ourselves, and it wanted tempering. So away we went to the smithy to have it ground, and who should come up but Robbie Atkinson, leading hassocks from Longridge. And Robbie would fain have us go with him and be cheerful at the Flying Horse. Well, we'd each had a pot of ale and milk, when in came Natt, the stableman at Ritson's, all lather like one of his horses after his master has been astride her. And Natt was full of a great quarrel at the Ghyll, wherein young Mr. Hugh had tried to turn yonder man out of the house in the way I told you of before, but the man denied that he was what Hugh called him, and clung to it that he was Paul Ritson, and brought documents to show that Paul was his father's rightful heir, after all."

"Well, well?" asked Greta, breathlessly.

Peter had shambled on to the house.

"Well, Natt is no very trustworthy chronicler, I fear, but one thing is plain, and that is, that Mr. Hugh, who thought to turn yon man out of the house, has been turned out of it himself."

Greta stood in the road, trembling from head to foot.

"My poor husband!" she said in a whisper. Then came a torrent of questions. "When did this happen? What think you will come of it? Where will Hugh go? What will he do? Ah, Mr. Christian, you always said the cruel instrument would turn in his hand!"

There was a step behind them. In their anxiety they had not noticed it until it was close at their heels. They turned, and were face to face with Mr. Bonnithorne.

The lawyer bowed, but before they had exchanged the courtesies of welcome, a horse's tramp came from the road, and in a moment Drayton rode up the lonnin. His face was flushed, and his manner noisy as he leaped from the saddle into their midst.

Greta lifted one hand to her breast, and with the other hand she clasped that of the parson. The old man's face grew rigid in an instant, and all the mellowness natural to it died away.

Drayton made up to Greta and the parson with an air of braggadocio.

"I've come to tell you once for all that my wife must live under my roof."

No one answered. Drayton took a step near, and slapped his boot with his riding-whip.

"The law backs me up in it, and I mean to have it out."

Still there was no answer, and Drayton's braggadocio gathered assurance from the silence.

"Not as I want her. None of your shrinking away, madame." A hoarse laugh. "Burn my body! if I wouldn't as soon have my mother for a wife."

"What then?" said the parson in a low tone.

"Appearances. I ain't to be a laughing-stock of the neighborhood any longer. My wife's my wife. A husband's a husband, and wants obedience."

"And what if you do not get it?" asked the parson, his old face whitening.

"What? Imprisonment – that's what." Drayton twisted about and touched the lawyer with the handle of his whip. "Here, you, tell 'em what's what."

Thus appealed to, Mr. Bonnithorne explained that a husband was entitled to the restitution of connubial rights, and, in default, to the "attachment" of his spouse.

"The law," said Mr. Bonnithorne, "can compel a wife to live with her husband, or punish her with imprisonment for not doing so."

"D'ye hear?" said Drayton, slapping furiously at the sole of his boot. "Punish her with imprisonment."

There was a pause, and then the parson said, quietly but firmly:

"I gather that it means that you want to share this lady's property."

"Well, what of it? Hain't I a right to share it, eh?"

"You have thus far enjoyed the benefit of her mortgages, on the pretense that you are her husband; but now you are going too far."

"We'll see. Here, you," prodding the lawyer, "take proceedings at once. If she won't come, imprison her. D'ye hear – imprison her!"

He swung about and caught the reins from the horse's mane, laughing a hollow laugh. Greta disengaged her hand from the hand of the parson, and stepped up to Drayton until she stood before him face to face, her eyes flashing, her lips quivering, her cheeks pale, her whole figure erect and firm.

"And what of that?" she said. "Do you think to frighten me with the cruelties of the law? – me? – me?" she echoed, with scorn in every syllable. "Have I suffered so little from it already that you dare to say, 'Imprison her,' as if that would drive me to your house?"

Drayton tried to laugh, but the feeble effort died on his hot lips. He spat on the ground, and then tried to lift his eyes back to the eyes of Greta, but they fell to the whip that he held in his hand.

"Imprison me, Paul Drayton! I shall not be the first you've imprisoned. Imprison me, and I shall be rid of you and your imposture!" she said, raising her voice.

Drayton leaped to the saddle.

"I'll do it!" he muttered; and now, pale, crushed, his braggadocio gone, he tugged his horse's head aside and brought down the whip on its flank.

Parson Christian turned to Mr. Bonnithorne.

"Follow him," he said, resolutely, and lifted his hand.

The lawyer made a show of explanation, then assumed an air of authority, but finally encountered the parson's white face, and turned away.

In another moment Greta was hanging on Parson Christian's neck, sobbing and moaning, while the good old Christian, with all the mellowness back in his wrinkled face, smoothed her hair as tenderly as a woman.

"My poor Paul, my dear husband!" cried Greta.

"Ah! thanks be to God, things are at their worst now, and they can't move but they must mend," said the parson.

He took her indoors and bathed her hot forehead, and dried with his hard old hand the tears that fell from eyes that a moment before had flashed like a basilisk's.

Toward five o'clock that evening a knock came to the door of the vicarage, and old Laird Fisher entered. His manner was more than usually solemn and constrained.

"I's coom't to say as ma lass's wee thing is taken badly," he said, "and rayder sudden't."

Greta rose from her seat and put on her hat and cloak. She was hastening down the road while the charcoal-burner was still standing in the middle of the floor.

CHAPTER VIII

When Greta reached the old charcoal-burner's cottage, the little one was lying in a drowsy state in Mercy's arms. Its breathing seemed difficult; sometimes it started in terror; it was feverish and suffered thirst. The mother's wistful face was bent down on it with an indescribable expression. There were only the trembling lips to tell of the sharp struggle that was going on within. But the yearning for a sight of the little flushed countenance, the tearless appeal for but one glimpse of the drowsy little eyes, the half-articulate cry of a mother's heart against the fate that made the child she had suckled at her breast a stranger, whose very features she might not know – all this was written in that blind face.

"Is he pale?" said Mercy. "Is he sleeping? He does not talk now, but only starts and cries, and sometimes coughs."

"When did this begin?" asked Greta.

"Toward four o'clock. He had been playing, and I noticed that he breathed heavily, and then he came to me to be nursed. Is he awake now? Listen."

The little one in its restless drowsiness was muttering faintly, "Man – go-on – batter – toas."

"The darling is talking in his sleep, isn't he?" said Mercy.

Then there was a ringing, brassy cough.

"It is croup," thought Greta.

She closed the window, lighted a fire, placed the kettle so that the steam might enter the room, then wrung flannels out of hot water, and wrapped them about the child's neck. She stayed all that night at the cottage, and sat up with the little one and nursed it. Mercy could not be persuaded to go to bed, but she was very quiet. It had not yet taken hold of her that the child was seriously ill. He was drowsy and a little feverish, his pulse beat fast and he coughed hard sometimes, but he would be better in the morning. Oh, yes, he would soon be well again, and tearing up the flowers in the garden.

Toward midnight the pulse fell rapidly, the breathing become quieter, and the whole nature seemed to sink. Mercy listened with her ear bent down at the child's mouth, and a smile of ineffable joy spread itself over her face.

"Bless him, he is sleeping so calmly," she said.

Greta did not answer.

"The 'puss' and the 'man' don't darken his little life so much now," continued Mercy, cheerily.

"No, dear," said Greta, in as strong a voice as she could summon.

"All will be well with my darling boy soon, will it not?"

"Yes, dear," said Greta, with a struggle.

Happily Mercy could not read the other answer in her face.

Mercy had put her sensitive fingers on the child's nose, and was touching him lightly about the mouth.

"Greta," she said in a startled whisper, "does he look pinched?"

"A little," said Greta, quietly.

"And his skin – is it cold and clammy?"

"We must give him another hot flannel," said Greta.

Mercy sat at the bedside, and said nothing for an hour. Then all at once, and in a strange, harsh voice, she said:

"I wish God had not made Ralphie so winsome."

Greta started at the words, but made no answer.

The daylight came early. As the first gleams of gray light came in at the window, Greta turned to where Mercy sat in silence. It was a sad face that she saw in the mingled yellow light of the dying lamp and the gray of the dawn.

Mercy spoke again.

"Greta, do you remember what Mistress Branthet said when her baby died last back-end gone twelvemonth?"

Greta looked up quickly at the bandaged eyes.

"What?" she asked.

"Well, Parson Christian tried to comfort her, and said, 'Your baby is now an angel in Paradise,' and she turned on him with 'Shaf on your angels – I want none on 'em – I want my little girl.'"

Mercy's voice broke into a sob.

Toward ten o'clock the doctor came. He had been detained. Very sorry to disoblige Mrs. Ritson, but fact was old Mr. de Broadthwaite had an attack of lumbago, complicated by a bout of toothache, and everybody knew he was most exacting. Young person's baby ill? Feverish, restless, starts in its sleep, and cough? – Ah, croupy cough – yes, croup, true croup, not spasmodic. Let him see; how old? A year and a half? Ah, bad, very. Most frequent in second year of infancy. Dangerous, highly so. Forms a membrane that occludes air passages. Often ends in convulsions, and child suffocates. Sad, very. Let him see again. How long since the attack began? Yesterday at four. Ah, far gone, far. The great man soon vanished, leaving behind him a harmless preparation of aconite and ipecacuanha.

Mercy had heard all, and her pent-up grief broke out in sobs.

"Oh, to think I shall hear my Ralphie no more, and to know his white cold face is looking up from a coffin, while other children are playing in the sunshine and chasing the butterflies! No, no, it can not be; God will not let it come to pass; I will pray to Him and He will save my child. Why, He can do anything, and He has all the world. What is my little baby boy to Him? He will not let it be taken from me!"

Greta's heart was too full for speech. But she might weep in silence, and none there would know. Mercy stretched across the bed and, tenderly folding the child in her arms, she lifted him up, and then went down on her knees.

"Merciful Father," she said in a childish voice of sweet confidence, "this is my baby, my Ralphie, and I love him so dearly. You would never think how much I love him. But he is ill, and doctor says he may die. Oh, dear Father, only think what it would be to say, 'His little face is gone.' And then I have never seen him. You will not take him away until his mother sees him. So soon, too. Only five days more. Why, it is quite close. Not to-morrow, nor the next day, nor the next, but the day after that!"

She put in many another child-like plea, and then rose with a smile on her pale lips and replaced the little one on his pillow.

"How patient he is," she said. "He can't say 'Thank you,' but I'm sure his eyes are speaking. Let me feel." She put her finger lightly on the child's lids. "No, they are shut; he must be sleeping. Oh, dear, he sleeps very much. Is he gaining color? How quiet he is! If he would only say, 'Mamma!' How I wish I could see him!"

She was very quiet for awhile, and then plucked at Greta's gown suddenly.

"Greta," she said eagerly, "something tells me that if I could only see Ralphie I should save him."

Greta started up in terror. "No, no, no; you must not think of it," she said.

"But some one whispered it. It must have been God Himself. You know we ought to obey God always."

"Mercy, it was not God who said that. It was your own heart. You must not heed it."

"I'm sure it was God," said Mercy. "And I heard it quite plain."

"Mercy, my darling, think what you are saying. Think what it is you wish to do. If you do it you will be blind forever."

"But I shall have saved my Ralphie."

"No, no; you will not."

"Will he not be saved, Greta?"

"Only our heavenly Father knows."

"Well, He whispered it in my heart. And, as you say, He knows best."

Greta was almost distraught with fear. The noble soul in her would not allow her to appeal to Mercy's gratitude against the plea of maternal love. But she felt that all her happiness hung on that chance. If Mercy regained her sight, all would be well with her and hers; but if she lost it the future must be a blank.

The day wore slowly on, and the child sunk and sunk. At evening the old charcoal-burner returned, and went into the bedroom. He stood a moment, and looked down at the pinched little face, and when the child's eyes opened drowsily for a moment he put his withered forefinger into its palm; but there was no longer a responsive clasp of the chubby hand.

The old man's lips quivered behind his white beard.

"It were a winsome wee thing," he said, faintly, and then turned away.

He left his supper untouched and went into the porch. There he sat on a bench and whittled a blackthorn stick. The sun was sinking over the head of the Eel Crag; the valley lay deep in a purple haze; the bald top of Cat Bells stood out bright in the glory of the passing day. A gentle breeze came up from the south, and the young corn chattered with its multitudinous tongues in the field below. The dog lay at the charcoal-burner's feet, blinking in the sun and snapping lazily at a buzzing fly.

The little life within was ebbing away. No longer racked by the ringing cough, the loud breathing became less frequent and more harsh. Mercy lifted the child from the bed and sat with it before the fire. Greta saw its eyes open, and at the same moment she saw the lips move slightly, but she heard nothing.

"He is calling his mamma," said Mercy, with her ear bent toward the child's mouth.

There was a silence for a long time. Mercy pressed the child to her breast; its close presence seemed to soothe her.

Greta stood and looked down; she saw the little lips move once more, but again she heard no sound.

"He is calling his mamma," repeated Mercy, wistfully, "and, oh, he seems such a long way off!"

Once again the little lips moved.

"He is calling me," said Mercy, listening intently; and she grew restless and excited. "He is going away. I can hear him. He is far off. Ralphie, Ralphie!" She had lifted the child up to her face. "Ralphie, Ralphie!" she cried.

"Give me the baby, Mercy," said Greta.

But the mother clung to it with a convulsive grasp.

"Ralphie, Ralphie, Ralphie!.."

There was a sudden flash of some white thing. In an instant the bandage had fallen from Mercy's head, and she was peering down into the child's face with wild eyes.

"Ralphie, Ralphie!.. Hugh!" she cried.

The mother had seen her babe at last, and in that instant she had recognized the features of its father.

At the next moment the angel of God passed through that troubled house, and the child lay dead at the mother's breast.

Mercy saw it all, and her impassioned mood left her. She rose to her feet quietly, and laid the little one in the bed. There was never a sigh more, never a tear. Only her face was ashy pale, and her whitening lips quivered.

"Greta," she said, very slowly, "will you go for him?"

Greta kissed the girl's forehead tenderly. Her own calm, steadfast, enduring spirit sunk. All the world was dead to her now.

"Yes, dear," she whispered.

The next minute she was gone from the room.