Eli's Children Part 10

Polly had been furtively gazing from the window several times on the afternoon of that market-day, and turned hot and cold as she had heard steps which might be those of some one coming there; but the cloud pa.s.sed away in the sunshine of Tom Morrison's happy smile, now that he had come in, and she felt, as she expressed it, "oh! so safe."

"There, let me go, do, Tom," she cried, merrily. "Oh, what a great strong, rough fellow you are!"

"No, no; stop a minute," he said here. "I oughtn't to be smiling, for I've just heard something, Polly."

"Heard something, Tom!" she faltered, and she turned white with dread, and shrank away.

"Here, I say," he cried, "you must get up your strength, la.s.s. Why, what a shivering little thing thou art!"

"You--you frightened me, Tom," she gasped.

"Frightened you? There, there, it's nothing to frighten thee. I have just heard about Jock."

"Oh! about Jock," cried Polly, drawing a breath full of relief. "I hope he has got off."

"Well, no, my la.s.s, he hasn't, and I'm sorry and I'm not sorry, if thou canst understand that. I'm sorry Jock is to be punished, and I'm not sorry if it will do him good. Arn't you ashamed of having a husband with such a bad brother?"

"Ashamed! Oh, Tom!" she cried, throwing her arms about his neck.

"Well, if you are not, I am," said Tom, sadly; "and I can't help thinking that if old Humphrey Bone had done his duty better by us, Jock would have turned out a different man."

"But tell me, Tom, are they going to do anything dreadful to him?"

"Three months on bread and water, my la.s.s," said Tom Morrison,--"bread of repentance and water of repentance; and I hope they'll do him good, but I'm afraid when he comes out he'll be after the hares and pheasants again, and I'm always in a fret lest he should get into a fight with the keepers. But there, my la.s.s, I can't help it. I'd give him a share of the business if he'd take to it, but he wean't. I shan't fret, and if people like to look down on me about it, they may."

"But they don't, Tom, dear," cried Polly, with her face all in dimples, the great trouble of her life forgotten for the time. "I've got such a surprise for you."

"Surprise for me, la.s.s? What is it? A custard for tea?"

"No, no; what a boy you are to eat!" cried Polly, merrily.

"Just you come and smell sawdust all day, and see if you don't eat,"

cried Tom. "Here, what is it?"

"Oh, you must wait. There, what a shame! and you haven't kissed baby."

She ran out to fetch the baby and hold it up to him to be kissed, while she looked at him with all a young mother's pride in the little one, of which the great st.u.r.dy fellow had grown so fond.

"It makes me so happy, Tom," she said, with the tears in her eyes.

"Happy, does it, la.s.s?"

"Oh, yes. So--so happy," she cried, nestling to him with her baby in her arms, and sighing with her sense of safety and content, as the strong muscles held her to the broad breast. "I was afraid, Tom, that you might not care for it--that you would think it a trouble, and-- and--"

"That you were a silly little wife, and full of foolish fancies," he cried, kissing her tenderly.

"Yes, yes, Tom, I was," she cried, smiling up at him through her tears.

"But come--your tea. Here, Budge."

Budge had been a baby herself once--a workhouse baby--and she looked it still, at fourteen. Not a thin starveling, but a st.u.r.dy workhouse baby, who had thriven and grown strong on simple oatmeal fare. Budge was stout and rosy, and daily putting on flesh at Tom Morrison's cottage, where her duty was to "help missus, and nuss the bairn."

But nearly always in Polly's sight; for the first baby was too sacred a treasure in that cottage home to be trusted to any hands for long.

She was a good girl, though, was Budge; her two faults prominent being that when she cried she howled--terribly, and that "the way"--to use Tom Morrison's words--"she punished a quartern loaf was a sight to see."

Budge, fat, red-faced, and round-eyed, with her hair cut square at the ends so that it wouldn't stay tucked behind her ears, but kept coming down over her eyes, came running to take baby, and was soon planted on a three-legged stool on the clean, red-tiled floor, where she began shaking her head--and hair--over the baby, like a dark-brown mop, making the little eyes stare up at it wonderingly; and now and then a faint, rippling smile played round the lips, and brightened the eyes, to Budge's great delight.

For just then Budge was hard pressed. Workhouse matron teaching had taught her that when she went out to service it would be rude to stare at people when they were eating; and now there was the pouring out of tea, and spreading of b.u.t.ter, and cutting of bread and bacon going on in a way that was perfectly maddening to a hungry young stomach, especially if that stomach happened to be large, and its owner growing.

Budge's stomach was large, and Budge was growing, so she was hard pressed: and do what she would, she could not keep her eyes on the baby, for, by a kind of attraction, they would wander to the tea-table, and that loaf upon which Tom Morrison was spreading a thick coating of yellow b.u.t.ter, prior to hacking off a slice.

Poor Budge's eyes dilated with wonder and joy as, when the slice was cut off, nearly two inches thick, Tom stuck his knife into it, and held the ma.s.s out to her, with--

"Here, la.s.s, you look hungry. Tuck that away."

Budge would have made a bob, but doing so would have thrown the baby on the floor; so she contented herself with saying "Thanky, sir," and proceeded to make semicircles round the edge of the slice, and to drop crumbs on the baby's face.

"Well, la.s.s," said Tom, as Polly handed him his great cup of tea, "about the christening? When's it to be?"

"On Sunday, Tom, and that's what I wanted to tell you--it's my surprise."

"What's a surprise?"

"Why, about the G.o.dmothers, dear. Why, I declare," she pouted, "you don't seem to mind a bit."

"Oh, but I do," he said, "only I'm so hungry. Well, what about the G.o.dmothers?"

"Why, Miss Julia and Miss Cynthia have promised to stand. Isn't it grand?"

"Grand? Oh, I don't know."

"Tom!"

"Well, I suppose it is grand, but I don't know. It's all right if they like it. But about poor Jock?"

"Oh, that won't make any difference, dear. They've promised, and I know they won't go back. They'll be the two G.o.dmothers, and you the G.o.dfather."

"Of course," cried Tom, eating away; "two G.o.dmothers and a G.o.dfather, eh, la.s.s? that's right, isn't it?"

"Yes, Tom," said the little woman, eagerly attending to her husband's wants, "and two G.o.dfathers and a G.o.dmother if it's a boy."

"It'll be a grand christening, won't it, Polly?" said Tom.

"Oh, no, dear. Miss Julia and Miss Cynthia are the dearest and best of girls, and they have no pride. Miss Julia talked to me the other day just like a friend."

"I say," cried Tom, eagerly.

"What, dear?"