"What is it? Oh! what is it?" asked the woman, at last having some idea that somebody was near her.
"I am very sorry; I assure you, ma'am, that I never felt more sorry in all my life," said Kit, who was a very kind-hearted fellow, and had now espied a small boy lying dead. "I give you my word of honour, ma'am, that if I could have guessed it, I would never have looked in."
Without any answer, the gipsy-woman turned again to her dead child, and took two little hands in hers, and rubbed them, and sat up, imagining that she felt some sign of life. She drew the little body to her breast, and laid the face to hers, and breathed into pale open lips (scarcely fallen into death), and lifted little eyelids with her tongue, and would not be convinced that no light came from under them; and then she rubbed again at every place where any warmth or polish of the skin yet lingered. She fancied that she felt the little fellow coming back to her, and she kept the whole of her own body moving to encourage him.
There was nothing to encourage. He had breathed his latest breath. His mother might go on with kisses, friction, and caresses, with every power she possessed of muscle, and lungs, and brain, and heart. There he lay, as dead as a stone—one stone more on the earth; and the whole earth could not bring him back again.
Cinnaminta bowed her head. She laid the little bit of all she ever loved upon her lap, and fetched the small arms so that she could hold them both together, and spread the careless face upon the breast where once it had felt its way; and then she looked up in search of Kit, or any one to say something to.
"It is a just thing. I have earned it. I have robbed an old man of his only child; and I am robbed of mine."
These words she spoke not in her own language, but in plain good English; and then she lay down in her quiet scoop of sand, and folded her little boy in with her. Christopher saw that there was nothing to be done. He cared to go no further in search of fortune-tellers; and, being too young to dare to offer worthless consolation, he wisely resolved to go home and have fried bacon; wherein he succeeded.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
MAY-DAY.
Ere yet it was noon of that same day, to the great delight of Mrs. Sharp, a strong desire to fish arose in the candid bosom of Christopher.
"Mother," he said, "I shall have a bit of early grub, and take my rod, and try whether I can't manage to bring you a few perch home for supper. Or, if the perch are not taking yet, I may have a chance of a trout or two."