THE SLEEPING DRAUGHT.
Jonas found that old Clutch was not lavishing endearments on the
gray mare over the intervening partition of stalls, but was lying
down on the straw. Nothing said or done would induce the horse to
rise, and the hostler told Bideabout that he believed the beast
was really lame. It had been overworked at its advanced age, and
must be afforded rest.
"He's a Radical," said the Broom-Squire. "You move that gray into
another stable and Clutch will forget about his lameness, I dare
swear. He's twenty-five and has a liquorish eye, still--it's
shameful."
Bideabout was constrained to walk from Godalming to the Punch-Bowl,
and this did not serve to mend his humor. He reached home late at
night, when the basin was full of darkness, and the only light
that showed came from the chamber where Mehetabel sat with her baby.
When Jonas entered, he saw by the rushlight that she was not
undressed, and heard by her voice that she was anxious.
"The baby is very unwell, Jonas," she said, and extending her hand,
lit a tallow candle at the meagre flame of the rushlight.
As the wick flared, so did something flare up in the face of the
Broom-Squire.
"Why do you look like that?" asked Mehetabel, for the look did not
escape her.
"Main't I look as I choose?" he inquired surlily.
"It almost seemed as if you were glad to hear that my poor darling
is ill," complained she.
"Ain't I glad to be home after bein' abroad all day a-wackin', and
abusin' of old Clutch, and then had to walk from Gorlmyn (Godalming),
and the aggravation of knowin' how as the hoss be shakin' his sides
laughin' at me for doin of it. Wot's up with the kid?"
"I really cannot tell, Jonas; he's been restless and moaning all
day. I have not been able to get him to sleep, and I am sure he
has had one or two fits. He became white and stiff. I thought he'd
a-died, and then my heartstrings were like breaking."
"Oh, drat your heartstrings, I don't care to hear of them. So, you
thort he was dyin'. Perhaps he may. More wun'erful things happen
than that. It's the way of half the babies as is born."
"It will kill me if mine is taken from me!" cried Mehetabel, and
cast herself on her knees and embraced the cradle, regardless of
the sprigs of spiked leaves she had stuck round it, and burst into
an agony of tears.
"Now look here," said Jonas; "I've been tried enough wi' old Clutch
to-day, and I don't want to be worreted at night wi' you. Let the
baby sleep if it is sleepin', and get me my vittles. There's others
to attend to in the world than squawlin' brats. It's spoilin' the
child you are. That's what is the meanin' of its goings-on. Leave
it alone, and take no notice, and it'll find out quick enough that
squeals don't pay. I want my supper. Go after the vittles."
Mehetabel lay in her clothes that night. The child continued to be
restless and fretted. Jonas was angry. If he was out all day he
expected to rest well at night; and she carried the cradle in her
arms into the spare room, where the peevishness of the child, and
the rocking and her lullaby could not disturb her husband. As she
bore the cradle, the sprigs of butcher's broom and withered
chrysanthemums fell and strewed her path, leaving behind her a
trail of dying flowers, and of piercing thorns, and berries like
blood-drops. No word of sympathy had the Broom-Squire uttered; no
token had he shown that he regarded her woes and was solicitous
for the welfare of his child. Mehetabel asked for neither. She had
learned to expect nothing from him, and she had ceased to demand
of him what he was incapable of giving, or unwilling to show.
Next morning Mehetabel was prompt to prepare breakfast for her
husband. The day was fine, but the light streaming in through the
window served to show how jaded she was with long watching, with
constant attention, and with harrowing care.
Always punctilious to be neat, she had smoothed her hair, tidied
her dress, and washed the tears from her face, but she could not
give brightness to the dulled eye or bloom to the worn cheek.
For a while the child was quiet, stupefied with weariness and long
crying. By the early light Mehetabel had studied the little face,
hungering after tokens of recovering powers, glad that the drawn
features were relaxed temporarily.
"Where are you going to-day, Bideabout?" she asked, timidly,
expecting a rebuff.
"Why do you ask?' was his churlish answer.
"Because--oh! if I might have a doctor for baby!"
"A doctor!" he retorted. "Are we princes and princesses, that we
can afford that? There's no doctor nigher than Hazelmere, and I
ain't goin' there. I suppose cos you wos given the name of a
Duchess of Edom, you've got these expensive ideas in your head.
Wot's the good of doctors to babies? Babies can't say what ails
them."
"If--if--" began Mehetabel, kindly, "if I might have a doctor, and
pay for it out of that fifteen pound that father let me have."
"That fifteen pound ain't no longer yours. And this be fine game,
throwin' money away on doctors when we're on the brink of ruin.
Don't you know as how the bank has failed, and all my money gone?
The fifteen pound is gone with the rest."
"If you had but allowed me to keep it, it would not have been lost
now," said Mehetabel.
"I ain't goin' to have no doctors here," said Bideabout, positively,
"but I'll tell you what I'll do, and that's about as much as can be
expected in reason. I'm goin' to Gorlmyn to fetch old Clutch; and
I'll see a surgeon there and tell him whatever you like--and get
a mixture for the child. But I won't pay more than half-a-crown,
and that's wasted. I don't believe in doctors and their paint and
water, as they gives us."
Jonas departed, and then the tired and anxious mother again turned
to her child. The face was white spotted with crimson, the closed
lids blue.
There was no certainty when Bideabout would return, but assuredly
not before evening, as he walked to Godalming, and if he rode home
on the lame horse, the pace would be slower than a walk.
Surely she could obtain advice and help from some of the mothers
in the Punch-Bowl. Sally Rocliffe she would not consult. The gleam
of kindness that had shone out of her when Mehetabel was in her
trouble had long ago been quenched.
When the babe woke she muffled it in her shawl and carried the
mite to the cottage of the Boxalls. The woman of that family,
dark-skinned and gypsy-like, with keen black eyes, was within, and
received the young mother graciously. Mehetabel unfolded her
treasure and laid it on her knees--the child was now quiet, through
exhaustion.
"I'll tell y' what I think," said Karon Boxall, "that child has
been overlooked--ill-wished."
Mehetabel opened her eyes wide with terror.
"That's just about the long and short of it," continued Mrs. Boxall.
"Do you see that little vein there, the color of 'urts. That's a
sure sign. Some one bears the poor creature no love, and has cast
an evil eye on it."
The unhappy mother's blood ran chill. This, which to us seems
ridiculous and empty, was a grave and terrible reality to her mind.
"Who has done it?" she asked below her breath.
"That's not for me to say," answered the woman. "It is some one
who doesn't love the babe, that's sure."
"A man or a woman?"
Mrs. Boxall stooped over the infant.
"A woman," she said, with assurance. "The dark vein be on the left
han' side."
Mehetabel's thoughts ran to Sally Rocliffe. There was no other
woman who could have felt ill-feeling against the hapless infant,
now on her lap.
"What can I do?" she asked.
"There's nothin'. Misfortune and wastin' away will be to the
child--though they do say, if you was to take it to Thor's Stone,
and carry it thrice round, way of the sun, you might cast off the
ill-wish. But I can't say. I never tried it."
"I cannot take it there," cried Mehetabel, despairingly, "the
weather is too cold, baby too ill."
Then clasping the child to her bosom, and swaying herself, she
sobbed forth--
"A little fish swims in the well.
So in my heart does baby dwell,
The king has sceptre, crown and ball,
You are my sceptre, crown and all."
She went home sobbing, and hugging her child, holding it away from
the house of Sarah Rocliffe, lest that woman might be looking forth
at her window, and deepen by her glance the spell that held and
broke down her child.
Towards evening fall Jonas returned.
Directly he crossed the threshold, with palpitating eagerness
Mehetabel asked--
"Have you seen the doctor?"
"Yes," he answered curtly.
"What did he say?"
"He'd got a pass'l o' learned names of maladies--I can't recollect
them all. Tain't like as I should."
"But--did he give you any medicine?"
"Yes, I had to pay for it too."
"Oh, Jonas, do give it me, and tell me, are you quite sure you
explained to him exactly what ailed baby?"
"I reckon I did."
"And the bottle, Jonas?"
"Don't be in such a won'erful hurry. I've other things to do than
get that put yet. How is the child?"
"Rather better."
"Better!" he echoed, and Mehetabel, who looked intently in his
face, saw no sign of satisfaction, rather of disappointment.
"Oh, Jonas!" she cried, "is it naught to you that baby is so ill?
You surely don't want him to die?"
He turned fiercely on her, his face hard and gray, and his teeth
shining--
"What makes you say that--you?"
"Oh, nothin', Jonas, only you don't seem to care a bit about baby,
and rather to have a delight in his bein' so ill."
"He's better, you say?"
"Yes--I really do think it."
There was an unpleasant expression in his face that frightened her.
Was it the eye of Jonas that had blighted the child? But no--Karon
Boxall had said that it was ill-wished by a woman. Jonas left the
room, ascended the stairs, and strode about in the chamber overhead.
Swaying in her chair, holding the infant to her heart, the sole
heart that loved it, but loved it with a love ineffable, she heard
her husband open the window, and then hastily shut it again. Then
there was a pause in his movement overhead, and he came shortly
after down the stairs. He held a phial in his hand--and without
looking at Mehetabel, thrust it towards her, with the curt
injunction, "Take."
"Perhaps," said the young mother, "as my darling is better, I need
not give him the medicine."
"That's just like your ways," exclaimed the Broom-Squire, savagely.
"Fust I get no rest till I promise to go to the doctor, and then
when I've put myself about to go, and bring the bottle as has cost
me half-a-crown, you won't have it."
"Indeed--it is only----"
"Oh, yes--only--to annoy me. The child is ill. I told the doctor
all, and he said, that this would set it to rights and give it
sleep, and rest to all of us." He was in a bad temper. Mehetabel
did not venture to say more. She took the phial and placed it on
the table. It was not wrapped up in paper.
Then Jonas hastily went forth. He had old Clutch to attend to.
Mehetabel remained alone, and looked at the medicine bottle; then
she laid the infant on her knees and studied the little face, so
blanched with dark rings round the eyes. The tiny hands were drawn
up on the breast and clasped; she unfolded and kissed them.
Then she looked again at the phial.
There was something strange about it. The contents did not appear
to have been well mixed, the upper portion of the fluid was dark,
the lower portion white. How came this about? Jonas had ridden old
Clutch home, and the movements of the horse were not smooth. The
bottle in the pocket of Bideabout must have undergone such shaking
as would have made the fluid contents homogeneous and of one hue.
She held the bottle between herself and the light. There was no
doubt about it, either the liquid separated rapidly, or had never
been mixed.
She withdrew the cork and applied the mouth of the phial to her
nose.
The scent of the medicine was familiar. It was peculiar. When had
she smelt that odor before. Then she started. She remembered the
little bottle containing laudanum, with the death's head on it, in
the closet upstairs.
Hastily, her heart beating with apprehension, she laid her babe in
the cradle, and taking the light, mounted to the upper chamber. She
possessed the key of the cabinet in the wall. She had retained it
because afraid to give it up, and Jonas had manufactured for
himself a fresh key.
Now she unlocked the closet, and at once discovered the laudanum
bottle.
It was half empty.
Some of it had been used.
How had it been used? Of that she had little doubt. The dangerous,
sleep-bringing laudanum had been put into the medicine for the
child. It was to make room for that that Jonas had opened the
window and poured forth some of the contents.
A drop still hung on the top of the phial.
She shut and relocked the cupboard, descended, with dismay, despair
in her heart, and taking the bottle from the table, dashed it into
the fire upon the hearth. Then she caught her babe to her, and
through floods of tears, sobbed: "There is none love thee but
I--but I--but only I! O, my babe, my babe! My sceptre, crown, and
all!"
In the blinding rain of tears, in the tumult of passion that
obscured her eyes, that confused her brain, Mehetabel saw, heard
nothing. She had but one sense--that of feeling, that thrilled
through one fibre only attached to the helpless, suffering morsel
in her arms--the infant she held to her breast, and which she would
have liked to bury in her heart away from all danger, concealed
from the malevolent eye, and the murderous hand.
All the mother's nature in her was roused and flared into madness.
She alone loved this little creature, she alone stood between it
and destruction. She would fight for it, defend it to her last
breath, with every weapon wherewith she was endowed by nature.
After the first paroxysm of passion was passed, and a lull of
exhaustion ensued, she looked up, and saw Bideabout enter, and
as he entered he cast a furtive glance at the table, then at the
child.
In a moment she resolved on the course she should adopt.
"Have you given the babe the draught?" he asked, with averted face.
"Not all."
"Of course, not all."
"Will it make baby sleep?" asked Mehetabel.
"O, sleep--sleep! yes--we shall have rest for one night--for many,
I trust. O, do not doubt. It will make it sleep!"