MEHETABEL.
Iver stood in the open air with the child in his arms. He was
perplexed. What should be done with it? He would have rubbed
his head, to rub an idea into it, had not both his arms been
engaged.
Large warm drops fell from the sky, like tears from an overcharged
heart. The vault overhead was now black with rain clouds, and a
flicker over the edge of the Punch-Bowl, like the quivering of
expiring light in a despairing eye, gave evidence that a thunderstorm
was gathering, and would speedily break.
The babe became peevish, and Iver was unable to pacify it.
He must find shelter somewhere, and every door was shut against the
child. Had it not been that the storm was imminent, Iver would have
hasted directly home, in full confidence that his tender-hearted
mother would receive the rejected of the Broom-Squire, and the
Ship Inn harbor what the Punch-Bowl refused to entertain.
He stumbled in the darkness to Jonas Kink's house, but finding the
door locked, and that the rain was beginning to descend out of the
clouds in rushes, he was obliged to take refuge in an out-house or
barn--which the building was he could not distinguish. Here he was
in absolute darkness. He did not venture to grope about, lest he
should fall over some of the timber that might be, and probably was,
collected there.
He supposed that he was in the place where Jonas fashioned his
brooms, in which case the chopping block, the bundles of twigs,
as well as the broom-sticks would be lying about. Bideabout was
not an orderly and tidy worker, and his material would almost
certainly be dispersed and strewn in such a manner as to trip
up and throw down anyone unaccustomed to the place, and unprovided
with a light.
The perspiration broke out on the boy's brow. The tears welled up
in his eyes. He danced the infant in his arms, he addressed it
caressingly, he scolded it. Then, in desperation, he laid it on
the ground, and ran forth, through the rain, to the cottage of an
old maid near, named Sally, stopping, however, at intervals in his
career, to listen whether the child were still crying; but unable
to decide, owing to the prolonged chime in his ears. It is not at
once that the drums of hearing obtain relief, after that they have
been set in vibration by acute clamor. On reaching the old maid's
door he knocked.
For some time Sally remained irresponsive.
"I knows very well," said she to herself under the bedclothes,
"it's that dratted boy who has been at the Rocliffe's."
Iver persisted in knocking. At length she appeared at the casement,
opened it, thrust forth her nightcapped head, and said peevishly,
"It ain't no manner o' use. I won't have no babies here, not to
my time o' life, thank'y. I sez I won't, and wot I sez that I
sticks to like toffee between the teeth. You may knock them there
knuckles of yorn into dimples, but open I won't. I won't. I won't."
The old woman stamped on her bedroom floor.
"I do not ask that, Sally," pleaded the boy. "I have set the baby
in Bideabout's barn, and there's no knowin', it may get hold of
the chopper and hack off its limbs, or pull down all the rick o'
broom-handles on Itself, or get smothered in the heather. I want
a lantern. I don't know how to pacify the creature, and 'tis
squeadling that terrible I don't know what's the matter."
"Is it a drawin' of the hind legs up, and stiffenin' of the back?"
asked the old maid.
"I think so," answered the boy, dubiously; then, with further
consideration, "I'm sure of it. It wriggled in my arms, like a worm
when one's gettin' it on a hook out fishing."
"That's convulsions," said Sally. "'Twill go off in one of they,
sure as eggs is eggs and ain't inions."
"Do you really say so?"
"It's that, or water on the brain. Wi' all this pouring rain, I
shouldn't wonder if 'twasn't the tother. Not, you know, that I've
any acquaintance wi babies. Only I've heard wimmin talk as has had
'em just like rabbits."
"Do they die when they have water on the brain?" asked the boy.
"Always. Babies can't stand it, no more nor can goslings gettin'
their backs wetted."
"Don't you think that perhaps it's only hunger?"
"Can't say. Has the babe been a grabbin' and a clawin' at your
nose, and a tryin' to suck it?"
"Once, Sally, when my nose got into the way."
"Then there's hunger too," said Sally, sententiously. "Them babies
has terrible apertites, like canibals, and don't know what's good
for 'em."
"Will you help me?" pleaded the boy. "Have you a feeding bottle?"
"Presarve and deliver us--I! What do you take me for, you imperant
bye?"
"I think any medicine bottle would do, if well washed out. I
shouldn't like, if there was any castor oil or senna tea dregs
left, you know. But properly washed out, it might do, with a
little milk in it."
"You'll choke the baby like that," said the old maid.
"I have seen how it is done. You stuff a bit of rag into the
throat of the bottle, and leave a tip o' rag hanging out."
"Dare say, but you byes seems to understand these things better
than I."
"Won't you come down and help me, Sally?"
"I'll come down presently when I've tumbled into some of my
clothes."
Then the head disappeared, and the casement was shut.
After the lapse of a few minutes, a light appeared at the window
of the lower room, and the door was slowly unlocked and unbarred.
Then the old woman appeared in the doorway. She wore her huge
white-frilled nightcap, that fluttered in the wind about the
shrivelled face it enclosed, but she presented an extremely limp
and attenuated appearance in her person.
"I've been a turnin' over in my head," she said, "and ten chances
to half-a-one, if that there child hev been squealin' so long,
it's either broke a blood vessel, or will die o' 'plexy. There'll
be a purty expense to the parish. There'll be two buryings laid
on it that oughten't to be. That means an extra penny in the
rates. If them there chaps wanted to murder a man, why didn't
they go and do it in Hampshire, and not go a burdenin' of this
county an' parish? There's rayson in everything."
"Do you really suppose the child will die?" asked the boy, more
concerned about the life than about the rates.
"How can I say? I've had precious little to do wi' babies, thanks
be. Now, sharp, what is it you want? I'm perishin' wi' cold."
"May I have a bottle and some milk, and a lantern?"
"You can have wot you wants, only I protest I'll have no babies
foist on me here." Then she added, "I will not trust you byes.
Show me your hands that you ain't hidin' of it behind yer back."
"I assure you the child is in Bideabout's shed. Do be quick, and
help. I am so afraid lest it die, and becomes a wanderer."
"If I can help it I will do what I can that it mayn't die, for
certain," said the woman, "anything but taking it in here, and
that I won't, I won't, I won't." Again she stamped.
Iver provided himself with the requisites as speedily as might be,
and hastened back to the outhouse. At the door a cat was miawling,
and rubbed itself against his shins. When he entered the cat
followed him.
The child was still sobbing and fitfully screaming, but was rapidly
becoming exhausted.
Iver felt the arms and head and body to ascertain whether any bone
was broken or battered by the fall, but his acquaintance with the
anatomy of a child was still rudimentary for him to come to any
satisfactory conclusion.
He held the bottle in one and, but was ignorant how to administer
the contents. Should the child be laid on its back or placed in a
sitting posture?
When he applied the moistened rag to its mouth he speedily
learned that position was immaterial. The babe fell to work
vigorously, with the large expectation of results. Some moments
elapsed before it awoke to the fact that the actual results were
hardly commensurate with its anticipations, nor with its exertions.
When roused to full consciousness that it was being trifled with,
then the resentment of the infant was vehement and vociferous.
It drew up its legs and kicked out. It battled with its hands, it
butted with its pate, and in its struggles pulled the plug out
of the mouth of the flask so that the milk gushed over its face
and into its mouth, at once blinding and choking it.
"Oh, dear, oh, dear, what shall I do?" he exclaimed, and began to
cry with vexation.
The cat now came to his assistance. It began to lick up the spilled
milk.
Iver seized the occasion.
"Look, see, pretty puss!" said he, caressingly, to the child.
"Stroke pussy. Don't be afraid. You see she likes the milk that you
wouldn't have. Naughty pussy eats little birds and mousies. But she
won't touch babies."
The cat having appropriated the spilled milk looked at the infant
with an uncanny way out of her glinting green eyes, as though by no
means indisposed to try whether baby was not as good eating as a
fledgling bird, as toothsome as a mouse.
Iver caught up the cat and scratched her under the chin and behind
the ears.
"Do you hear? The pussy purrs. Would that you also might purr. She
is pleased to make your acquaintance. Oh do, do, do be quiet!"
Then casting aside the cat he endeavored slowly to distil some of
the milk down the child's throat without suffering it to swallow
too much at once, but found the task difficult, if not impossible
for his hand shook.
"Wait a bit," said he. "There are straws here. I will cut one and
put it through the rag, and then you can tipple like a king upon
his throne."
He selected a stout barley straw, and finding a knot in it
endeavored to perforate the obstruction with a pin. When this
failed he looked about for another straw, and at last discovered
one that was strong, uninterrupted by knots, and sufficiently
long to serve his purpose.
For awhile he was so engrossed in his occupation that the child
remained unnoticed. But when the straw had been adjusted
satisfactorily, and the apparatus was in working order, as Iver
ascertained by testing it himself, then he looked round at his
charge.
The babe was lying silent and motionless.
His heart stood still.
"It is dead! It is going to die! It will become a wanderer!" he
exclaimed; and putting down the feeding bottle, snatched up the
lantern, crept on his knees to the child, and brought the little
face within the radius of the sickly yellow light.
"I cannot see! O, I can see nothing! There is no light worth
having!" he gasped, and proceeded to open the door in the lantern
side.
"What is do be done?" he asked despairingly. "I do not know if it
be dying or be in a fit. O! live! do, do live! I'll give you a
brass button and some twine out of my pocket! I promise you my
next lollipops if you will. Nasty, cross, disobliging thing."
He went to the barn door and looked out, saw that the rain was
coming down in torrents, came back. "Is it true," asked he,
"that you must be a wanderer, if you die unchristened? Shall I
ever hear you yowling in the wind? It is too, too dreadful!"
A chill came over the boy's heart.
Iver had never seen death. He was vastly frightened at the thought
that the little soul might fleet away whilst he was watching. He
dared not leave the child. He was afraid to stay. If he were to
desert the babe, and it expired--and to run home, would not the
soul come crying and flapping after him?
He considered with his hands to his head.
"I know what I will do!" exclaimed he, suddenly; "I'll make a
Christian of it, anyhow."
There was standing on the floor an old broken red bowl of coarse
pottery, out of which fowls had been fed. It was now empty.
Iver took it, wiped it out with his hand, and went with it to
the door, where a rude "launder" or shoot of wood carried the
water from the thatch immediately over the door, and sent the
collected moisture in a stream down one side. The boy held the
vessel under the shoot till he had obtained sufficient for his
purpose, and then, returning within, said, "I'll stop your
wandering," went up to the child, sprinkled some water over it
and said, "Mehetabel, I baptize thee--"
The cat made a spring and dashed past.
Down went the contents of the bowl over the babe, which uttered
a howl lusty, loud enough to have satisfied any nurse that the
baptism was valid, and that the devil was expelled.