Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/389

 26, 1864.] “Very well,” she answered in a tone of acquiescence. “But let me ask you one thing—can I have the baby baptised?”

“Baptised! why should you wish it baptised? It is not ill.”

“It is going away to-day to be nursed.”

“Have you heard of a fit person to undertake it?” he rejoined, never supposing but the baby was to he sent to some one in the vicinity. “I wish you would nurse it yourself, better for you, and the child too.”

“I told you that circumstances do not permit me to nurse it,” was her answer; “and I am sure my husband would not be pleased if I did. I wish it to he baptised before it goes away; perhaps there is some clergyman or curate in the town who would kindly come in and do it.”

“I can arrange that,” said Mr. Stephen. “Only you keep quiet. What is the young giant’s name to be?”

“I must think of that,” said Mrs. Crane.

However, later in the morning, when church was over, and the Reverend William Lycett, curate of St. Mark’s, called to perform the rite, Judith went down to him and said that the sick lady had changed her mind with regard to having it baptised so soon, and was sorry to have troubled him. So Mr. Lycett, with a kind hope that both the lady and baby were going on satisfactorily, went away again. The event had caused quite a commotion in the little town, and its particulars were known from one end of it to the other.

The omnibus, so often referred to, allowed itself half an hour to start and jolt over the unpromising two miles of road. When ordered to do so, it would call for any passengers in South Wennock who might be going by it, and it was so ordered to call for Mrs. Smith. At a quarter past six,—for it liked to give itself plenty of time,—it drew up at Mrs. Gould’s house in Palace Street, and Mrs. Smith stepped into it with two bundles: one bundle containing the baby, the other the baby’s clothes.

It happened that she was the only passenger that Sunday evening; the omnibus therefore, not having a full load, tore and jolted along to its heart’s content, pretty nearly shaking Mrs. Smith to pieces. In vain, when she dared free a hand for a moment, did she hammer at the windows and the roof; but her hands had full occupation, the one taking care of the breathing bundle, the other clasping hold of the cushions, the woodwork, any part to steady herself. In vain she shriekcd out to the driver that her brains were being shaken out of her, herself battered to atoms; the driver was a phlegmatic man and rarely paid attention to these complaints of his passengers. He knew, shaken or not, they must go by him, unless they had a private conveyance; and the knowledge made him independent. The consequence of all the speed and jolting on this particular evening was, that the omnibus arrived at the Great Wennock station unusually early, twenty minutes before the up-train would start, and five minutes before the down-train was expected in.

Mrs. Smith, vowing vengeance against the driver and the omnibus, declared she would lay a complaint, and bounced out to do so. But the clerk at the station—and there was only one on duty that Sunday evening, and he a very young man—aggravatingly laughed in Mrs. Smith’s face at the account she gave of her bruises, and said the omnibus had nothing to do with him. Mrs. Smith, overflowing with wrath, took herself and her bundles into the first-class waiting-room, and there sat down. The room opened on one side to the platform, and on the other to the road, lately the scene of Mrs. Smith’s unpleasant journey.

Five minutes, and the down-train came steaming in. Some five or six passengers alighted, not more; the English as a nation do not prefer Sundays for making long journeys, and the train went steaming on again. The passengers all dispersed, save one; they belonged to Great Wennock; that one crossed the line when it was clear and came into the waiting-room.

It was Mr. Carlton, the medical gentleman whom the sick lady had wished to employ. He was of middle height, slender, and looking younger than his years, which may have been seven or eight-and-twenty; his hair and complexion were fair, his eyes a light blue, his features regular. It was a well-looking face, but singularly impassive, and there was something in the expression of the thin and closely-compressed lips not pleasing to many an eye. Altogether his appearance was that of a gentleman in rather a remarkable degree.

Discerning some one sitting there in the dusky twilight,—for the station generally neglected to light up its waiting-rooms on a Sunday night,—he lifted his hat momentarily and walked straight across to the door of egress, where he stood gazing down the road. Nothing was to be seen save the omnibus drawn up close, its horses steaming still.

“Taylor,” said Mr. Carlton, as the railway clerk came out whistling and took a general view outside, having probably nothing else to do, “do you know whether my groom has been here with the carriage?”

“No, sir, not that I have seen; but we only opened the station five minutes ago.”

Mr. Carlton retraced his steps indoors,