Another moan.
He strives to raise her, and the dog looks wistfully on, as if in full sympathy. Thy canine heart, poor Tray, is softer than that of the men who drove her forth to-night.
Ah, that is right; she takes courage, strives to rise,—no, she is down again.
“I cannot,” she says, “my limbs are frozen; take the child, save my Cuthbert.”
“I would fain save you both,” says the man, but he strives in vain to do so, it is beyond his power to carry them, and she can move no further; she but rises to sink again on the bank, her limbs have lost their power.
“Take my child,” she says once more, “and leave me to die; heaven is kinder than man, and the good angels are very near.”
The yeoman, for such he is, hesitates, “No one shall say that Giles Hodge forsook thee in thy strait, yet, there is the keeper’s cottage within a mile, if I run and take the babe, I may come back and save thee.”
“Go, go, for heaven’s sake, my boy must live, his precious life must be saved, then come back for me; he is the heir of”—
Here her voice failed her.
“She speaks the words of wisdom,” says Giles, and he takes the babe, leaving the shawl wrapped round the mother.