“Much good its mother is to it.”
“Just now she mayn’t be able to do much.”
“Oh! but she can though,” interrupted Harry; “she may give it the fever she’s got, whatever that is.”
“Well, I can’t say nothin’ else but it’s a pity the child should be took away from its natural home, and its own mother,” repeated Mrs. Tarnley.
“And who’s takin’ care o’t now?” demanded Harry.
“Lilly Dogger,” answered she.
“Lilly Dogger! just so; the slut! you said yourself, to-day, you wouldn’t trust a kitten with!”
Mrs. Tarnley couldn’t deny it. She sniffed and tossed up her chin a little.
“Ye forget, lass, ’twas never a Wyvern fashion nursin’ the babbies at home. I wasn’t, nor Charlie, poor fellow! nor Willie, nor none of us. ’Twas a sayin’ with the old folk, and often ye heered it, ‘one year a nurse, and seven years the worse;’ and we all was tall, well-thriven lads, and lives long, without fever or broken bones or the like, floors us untimely; and, anyhow, the doctor says, so it must be. There’s no one here, wi’ all this sickness in the house, has time to look after it, and the child will just come to grief unless his orders be followed. So stick on your bonnet and roll up the young chap in blankets, and I’ll drive ye over to the place he says. It brings me a bit out o’ my way, but kith and kin, ye know; and I told the doctor if he went to any expense, I’d be answerable to him myself, and I’ll gi’e ye a pound for good luck. So ye see I’m not sich a screw all out as ye took me for.”
“I thank you, Master Harry, and I’ll not deny but ’twas always the way wi’ the family to send out the children to nurse.”