“Keep us!” said Mrs. Pathrick, “why, how should she be? Did ye expect she would be up and bating the carpets?”
In half-a-dozen springs, as it seemed, I was within the gate. Then the clear, shrill wail with which a new soul prisoned in an unfamiliar body trumpets its discontent with the vanities of this world stopped me dead. Scarce knowing what I did, I took off my boots. I trod softly.
There was a hush now in the house—a sudden stoppage of that shrill bugle-note. I came upon my grandmother, as it seemed, moulding a little ruddy bundle, with as much apparent ease and absence of fuss as if it had been a pat of butter in the dairy at home.
And when she put my firstborn son into my arms, I had no high thoughts. I trembled, indeed, but it was with fear lest I should drop him.
Presently his nurse took him again, grumbling at the innate and incurable handlessness of men. Could I see Irma? Certainly not. What would I be doing, disturbing the poor thing? Very likely she was asleep. Oh, I had promised to go, had I? Well, she had nothing to do with that. But Irma would be expecting me! Oh, as to that, lad, lad, do not trouble yourself. She will be resting in a peace like the peace of the Lord, as you might know, if ever a man could know anything about such things.
Just for a minute? Well, then—a minute, and no more. Mind, she, Mary Lyon, would be at the door. I was not to speak even.
As I went in, Irma lifted her arms a little way and then let them fall. There was a kind of shiny dew on her face, little but chill to the touch of my lips. And, ah, how wistful her smile!
“Your ... little ... girl,” she whispered, “has deserved ... well ... of her country. I hope he will be brave ... like his father. I prayed all might be well ... for your sake, my dear. His name is to be Duncan.... Yes, Duncan Louis Maitland!”
I had been kneeling at the bedside, kneeling and, well—perhaps sobbing. But at that moment I felt a hand on my collar. The next I was on my feet, and so, with only one glimpse of Irma’s smile at my fate, I found myself outside the room.
“What was it I telled ye?—Not to excite her! Was it no?”