With manifest fear Tom stooped and took the little red flannel bundle from her arms.
“Never mind crying,” he said. “Go into the room and do what’s to be done.”
When left alone with his charge, he sat down and held it balanced carefully in his hands, his elbows resting on his knees. He was used to carrying his customers’ children, a great part of his popularity being based upon his jovial fondness for them. But he had never held so small a creature as this in his arms before. He regarded it with a respectful timidity.
“It wasn’t thought of,” he said, reflectively. “Even she—poor thing, poor thing—” he ended, hurriedly, “there was no time.”
He was still holding his small burden with awkward kindliness when the door opened and the man he had left in the room beyond came in. He approached the hearth and stood for a few seconds staring at the fire in a stupefied, abstracted way. He did not seem to see the child. At last he spoke.
“Where shall I lay her?” he asked. “Where is the nearest churchyard?”
“Fifteen miles away,” Tom answered. “Most of the people like to have their dead near them and lay them on the hillsides.”
The man turned to him with a touch of horror in his face.
“In unconsecrated ground?” he said.
“It doesn’t trouble them,” said Tom. “They sleep well enough.”