CHAPTER VI

THE CROSS UPREARED

Mr. Blee had but reported Will correctly, and it was not until some hours later that the child at Newtake caused his parents any alarm. Then he awoke in evident suffering, and Will, at Phoebe's frantic entreaty, arose and was soon galloping down through the night for Doctor Parsons.

His thundering knock fell upon the physician's door, and a moment later a window above him was opened.

"Why can't you ring the bell instead of making that fiendish noise, and waking the whole house? Who is it?"

"Blanchard, from Newtake."

"What's wrong?"

"'T is my bwoy. He've got something amiss with his breathing parts by the looks of it."

"Ah."

"Doan't delay. Gert fear comed to his mother under the darkness, 'cause he seemed nicely when he went to sleep, then woke up worse. So I felt us had better not wait till morning."

"I'll be with you in five minutes."

Soon the Doctor appeared down a lane from the rear of the house. He was leading his horse by the bridle.

"I'm better mounted than you," he said, "so I'll push forward. Every minute saved is gained."

Will thanked him, and Doctor Parsons disappeared. When the father reached home, it was to hear that his child was seriously ill, though nothing of a final nature could be done to combat the sickness until it a.s.sumed a more definite form.

"It's a grave case," said the physician, drearily in the dawn, as he pulled on his gloves and discussed the matter with Will before departing. "I'll be up again to-night. We mustn't overlook the proverbial vitality of the young, but if you are wise you will school your mind and your wife's to be resigned. You understand."

He stroked his peaked naval beard, shook his head, then mounted his horse and was gone.

From that day forward life stood still at Newtake, in so far as it is possible for life to do so, and a long-drawn weariness of many words dragged dully of a hundred pages would be necessary to reflect that tale of noctural terrors and daylight respites, of intermittent fears, of nerve-shattering suspense, and of the ebb and flow of hope through a fortnight of time. Overtaxed and overwrought, Phoebe ceased to be of much service in the sick-room after a week without sleep; Will did all that he could, which was little enough; but his mother took her place in the house unquestioned at this juncture, and ruled under Doctor Parsons.

The struggle seemed to make her younger again, to rub off the slow-gathering rust of age and charm up all her stores of sense and energy.

So they battled for that young life. More than once a shriek from Phoebe would echo to the farm that little Will was gone; and yet he lived; many a time the child's father in his strength surveyed the perishing atom, and prayed to take the burden, all too heavy for a baby's shoulders. In one mood he supplicated, in another cursed Heaven for its cruelty.

There came a morning in early April when their physician, visiting Newtake before noon, broke it to husband and wife that the child could scarcely survive another day. He promised to return in the evening, and left them to their despair. Mrs. Blanchard, however, refused to credit this a.s.surance, and cried to them to be hopeful still.

In the afternoon Mr. Blee rode up from Monks Barton. Daily a messenger visited Newtake for Mr. Lyddon's satisfaction, but it was not often that Billy came. Now he arrived, however, entered the kitchen, and set down a basket laden with good things. The apartment lacked its old polish and cleanliness. The whitewash was very dirty; the little eight-day clock on the mantelpiece had run down; the begonias in pots on the window-ledge were at death's door for water. Between two of them a lean cat stretched in the sun and licked its paws; beside the fire lay Ship with his nose on the ground; and Will sat close by, a fortnight's beard upon his chin.

He looked listlessly up as Mr. Blee entered and nodded but did not speak.

"Well, what 's the best news? I've brought 'e fair-fashioned weather at any rate. The air 's so soft as milk, even up here, an' you can see the green things grawin' to make up for lost time. Sun was proper hot on my face as I travelled along. How be the poor little lad?"

"Alive, that's all. Doctor's thrawed un awver now."

"Never! Yet I've knawed even Parsons to make mistakes. I've brought 'e a braave bunch o' berries, got by the gracious gudeness of Miller from Newton Abbot; also a jelly; also a bottle o' brandy--the auld stuff from down cellar--I brushed the Dartmoor dew, as 't is called, off the bottle myself; also a fowl for the missis."

"No call to have come. 'T is all awver bar the end."

"Never say it while the child's livin'! They 'm magical li'l twoads for givin' a doctor the lie. You 'm wisht an' weary along o' night watchings."

"Us must faace it. Ban't no oncommon thing. Hope's dead in me these many days; an' dying now in Phoebe--dying cruel by inches. She caan't bring herself to say 'gude-by' to the li'l darling bwoy."

"What mother could? What do Mrs. Blanchard the elder say?"

"She plucks up 'bout it. She 'm awver hopeful."

"Doan't say so! A very wise woman her."

Phoebe entered at this moment, and Mr. Blee turned from where he was standing by his basket.

"I be cheerin' your gude man up," he said.

She sighed, and sat down wearily near Will.

"I've brought 'e a chick for your awn eatin' an'--"

Here a scuffle and snarling and spitting interrupted Billy. The hungry cat, finding a fowl almost under its nose, had leapt to the ground with it, and the dog observed the action. Might is right in hungry communities; Ship a.s.serted himself, and almost before the visitor realised what had happened, poor Phoebe's chicken was gone.

"Out on the blamed thieves!" cried Billy, astounded at such manners. He was going to strike the dog, but Will stopped him.

"Let un bide," he said. "He didn't take it, an' since it weern't for Phoebe, better him had it than the cat. He works for his livin', she doan't."

"Such gwaines-on 'mongst dumb beasts o' the field I never seen!"

protested Billy; "an' chickens worth what they be this spring!"

Presently conversation drifted into a channel that enabled the desperate, powerless man to use his brains and employ his muscles; while for the mother it furnished a fresh gleam of hope built upon faith.

Billy it was who brought about this consummation. Led by Phoebe he ascended to the sick-room and bid Mrs. Blanchard "good-day." She sat with the insensible child on her lap by the fire, where a long-spouted kettle sent forth jets of steam.

"This here jelly what I've brought would put life in a corpse I do b'lieve; an' them butivul grapes, tu,--they'll cool his fever to rights, I should judge."

"He 'm past all that," said Phoebe.

"Never!" cried the other woman. "He'm a bit easier to my thinkin'."

"Let me take un then," said the mother. "You'm most blind for sleep."

"Not a bit of it. I'll have forty winks later, after Doctor's been again."

Will here entered, sat down by his mother, and stroked the child's little limp hand.

"He ban't fightin' so hard, by the looks of it," he said.

"No more he is. Come he sleep like this till dark, I lay he'll do braave."

n.o.body spoke for some minutes, then Billy, having pondered the point in silence, suddenly relieved his mind and attacked Will, to the astonishment of all present.