The doctor shook his head as he stood beside a plain bed in a
whitewashed ward where the tramp lay muttering fiercely, and the
brisk-looking master of the workhouse and a couple of elderly women
stood in a group.
"No, Hippetts," said the doctor; "the machinery is all to pieces and
beyond repair. No."
Just then there was a loud cry, consequent upon one of the women taking
the child from where it had been seated upon the foot of the bed, and
carrying it toward the door.
In a moment the sick man sprang up in bed, glaring wildly and stretching
out his hands.
"Quick! take the boy away," said the master; but the doctor held up his
finger, watching the sick man the while.
Then he whispered a few words to the master, who seemed to give an
unwilling consent, and the boy was placed within the tramp's reach.
The man had been trying to say something, but the words would not come.
As he touched the child's hand, though, he gave vent to a sigh of
satisfaction, and sank back upon the coarse pillow, while the child
nestled to his side, sobbing convulsively, but rapidly calming down.
"Against all rule and precedent, doctor," said the master, in an
ill-used tone.
"Yes, my dear Mr Hippetts," said the doctor, smiling; "but I order it
as a sedative medicine. It will do more good than anything I can give.
It will not be for long."
The master nodded.
"Mrs Curdley," continued the doctor, "you will sit up with him."
"Yes, sir," said one of the old women with a curtsey.
"Keep an eye to the child, in case he turns violent; but I don't think
he will--I don't think he will."
"And send for you, sir, if he do!"
"Yes."
The little party left the workhouse infirmary, all but Mrs Curdley, who
saw to lighting a fire for providing herself with a cup of tea, to
comfort her from time to time during her long night-watch, and then all
was very still in the whitewashed place.
The child took the bread and butter the old woman gave him, and sat on
the bed smiling at her as he ate it hungrily, quite contented now; and
the only sounds that broke the silence after a time were the mutterings
of the sick man.
But these did not disturb the child, who finished his bread and butter,
and drank some sweet tea which the old woman gave him, after which his
little head sank sidewise, his eyes closed, and he fell fast asleep on
the foot of the bed.
The night was warm, and he needed no coverlet, while from time to time
the hard-faced old woman went to look at her patient, giving him a
cursory glance, and then stopping at the bedside to gently stroke the
child's round cheek with her rough finger, and as the little fellow once
broke into a crowing laugh in his sleep, it had a strange effect upon
the old nurse, who slowly wiped the corners of her eyes with her apron,
and bent down and kissed him.
Hour after hour was chimed and struck by the great clock in the centre
of the town; and as midnight passed, the watchful old nurse did her
watching in a pleasant dream, in which she thought that she was once
more young, and that boy of hers who enlisted, went to India, and was
shot in an encounter with one of the hill tribes, was young again, and
that she was cutting bread and butter from a new loaf.
It was a very pleasant dream, and lasted a long time, for the six
o'clock bell was ringing before she awoke with a start and exclaimed--
"Bless me! must have just closed my eyes. Why, a pretty bairn!" she
said softly, as her hard face grew soft. "Sleeping like a top, and--
oh!"
She caught the sleeping child from the bed, and hurried out of the place
to lay him upon her own bed, where about an hour after he awoke, and
cried to go to the tramp.
But there was no tramp there for him to join. The rough man had gone on
a long journey, where he could not take the child, who cried bitterly,
as if he had lost the only one to whom he could cling, till the old
woman returned from a task she had had to fulfil, and with one of her
pockets in rather a bulgy state.
Her words and some bread and butter quieted the child, who seemed to
like her countenance, or read therein that something which attracts the
very young as beauty does those of older growth, and the addition of a
little brown sugar, into which he could dip a wet finger from time to
time, made them such friends that he made no objection to being washed.
"Yes, sir; went off quite quiet in his sleep," said the old nurse in
answer to the doctor's question.
"And the child?"
"Oh, I gave him a good wash, sir, which he needed badly," said the woman
volubly.
"Poor little wretch!" muttered the doctor as he went away. "A tramp's
child--a waif cast up by the way. Ah, Hippetts, I was right, you see:
it was not for long."