Greta returned home toward noon, laughing and crying a little to herself
as she walked, for she was full of a dear delicious envy. She was
thinking that she could take all the shame and all the pain for all the
joy of Mercy's motherhood.
God had given Greta no children.
Hugh Ritson came in to their early dinner and she told him how things
went at the cottage of the old Laird Fisher. Only once before had she
mentioned Mercy or the child, and he looked confused and awkward. After
the meal was over he tried to say something which had been on his mind
for weeks.
"But if anything should happen after all," he began, "and Mercy should
not recover--or if she should ever want to go anywhere--might we not
take--would you mind, Greta--I mean it might even help her--you see," he
said, breaking down nearly, "there is the child, it's a sort of duty,
you know--and then a good home and upbringing--"
"Don't tempt me," said Greta. "I've thought of it a hundred times."
About five o'clock the same evening a knock came to the door, 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 suddent."
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.
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 became 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 childlike 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, 'Mama!' How I wish I could see him!"
She was very quiet for a while, 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 something 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 sank and sank. 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 Eal Crag; the valley lay deep in a purple haze; only 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 a 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 mama," 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 mama," 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, "good-by! All is over now."
She spoke of herself as if her days were already ended and past; as if
her own orb of life had been rounded by the brief span of the little
existence that lay finished on the bed.
"When they come in the morning early--very early--and find us here, my
boy and me, don't let them take him away from me, Greta. We should go
together--yes, both together; that's only right, with Ralphie at my
bosom."
The bandage lay at her feet. Her eyes were very red and heavy. Their dim
light seemed to come from far away.
"Only that," she said, and her voice softened, "My Ralphie is in
heaven."
Then she hid her face in her hands, and cried out loud, "But I prayed to
God that I might see my child on earth. Oh, how I prayed! And God heard
my prayer and answered it--but see! _I saw him die._"