“I wouldn’t have minded her saying that. A fortnight-old baby lying in the shed in this cold!”
“I don’t think it will make much difference in the long-run, whether the baby stays in the shed or comes out of it,” said Tom Coney. “If it sees to-morrow’s dawn, I shall wonder.”
“Well, this is a fine start!” cried Mother Broom. “And the master never to have come home—that’s another,” she went on. For, what to do, she didn’t know the least in the world, and was like a woman with a lost head.
We left the matter to her, carrying some things to the shed as we passed it on our way home—blankets and a pillow, fresh water, milk-and-water for the baby, and a candle and matches. One of the women-servants was to come after us, with hot broth and wine.
When we reached Crabb Cot, the dismay there at hearing Robert Ashton had not turned up, was diversified by this news, which we told of. Not that they thought very much of it: the woman was only a poor tramp, they said; and such things—fevers, and that—happen to poor tramps every day.
“Do you think the baby’s dying?” asked Charles Ashton, the parson.
“I’m nearly sure it is,” said Tom Coney.
“That’s a kind of woman, you know, that ought to be committed for fourteen-days’ hard labour,” observed the Squire, fiercely, who was in a frightfully cross mood with the various mishaps and uncertainties of the evening. “Seems to be very sickly and humble, you say, Mr. Johnny! Hold your tongue, sir; what should you know about it? These women tramps bring death on their infants through exposure.”
“And that’s true,” said old Coney. “I’d punish ’em, Squire, if I were a magistrate like you.”
But what do you think Parson Ashton did? When the dog-cart had taken him and Mr. and Mrs. James Ashton to the Court—where they were to stay all night—he started off for the shed, and did not come away from it until he had baptized the baby.