She let him—which was cruellest of all. Guthrie turned his murderous eyes from the group and sauntered away, out of the garden, out of their sight, unrecalled, apparently unnoticed. Mary carried the crying child into the house.
Then for an hour the silly fellow walked alone in the most solitary places that he could find, revelling in the thought that it was Christmas Day, and he singled out by Fate to have no share in its happy circumstances: no home, no friends, no love, like other men—nothing to make life worth living, save only the baby son that he had ill-used. Apart from the sting of Deb's comment on it, he repented him of that blow. A great big man like him, to strike a tender mite like this—a motherless babe, his precious Lily's bequest to him—aye, indeed! It was the act of a brute, whatever the provocation. The mite was a waif too, alone in the world when his father was at sea, pathetically helpless, with no defence against blows and unkindness. The reflection brought dimness to the man's hard blue eyes, and turned his steps houseward.
He arrived to find a large four-horsed brake at the door. The body was filling with other persons—the sailor knew not, cared not whom. He looked up at the radiant figure in front. She looked down on him with heart-melting kindness, as if nothing had happened.
"Why, Mr Carey, aren't you coming to church?" she called to him. "Not—not today, I think," he answered, without premeditation.
"Christmas Day," she hinted invitingly. "You don't always get the chance, you know."
"I know. But—thanks—I'd rather not," he bluntly persisted, hating himself for the churlish response, and all the time wanting to go—certain to have gone if he had given himself time to think. Soldiers and sailors, with their habit of unquestioning obedience to authority, are almost always "good" churchmen, and, as she had pointed out, this offer of Christian privileges did not come to him every year. He had not anticipated it on this occasion, knowing Redford to be situated at least ten miles from a church.
"Oh, well," said Deborah, scenting spite, "I daresay it IS more comfortable in the cool house."
And then she left him, in the position of a self-indulgent idler, preferring comfort to duty, a foil to his more conscientious rival. When the dust of the departure had cleared away, he sat on, not in the cool house, but on the hot verandah, nursing his griefs in solitude. He seemed the only person left behind, or else he seemed forgotten, as a guest of no account. "What a Christmas Day!" was again his thought, while he dragged before his mind's eye old pictures of his English home, his dead mother, Santa Claus stockings, and all sorts of pathetic things. He resolved to quit Redford on the morrow, and spend the last hours of his leave in establishing his son elsewhere.
Then Mary Pennycuick came out to him, with that son in her arms. Her face was redeemed from its plainness by the tender motherliness and the no less tender friendliness of its expression; that of little Harry was cherubic. The heart of the lonely man warmed to both.
"He has come to tell daddy that he is a good boy now," explained Mary proudly. Guthrie ejaculated "Sonny boy!" and held out his arms. The baby, bearing no malice, tumbled into them, and was at once occupied with his father's watch-chain. The three subsided upon two cane chairs, looking, as Mary keenly comprehended, like a self-contained family.