Page:010 Once a week Volume X Dec 1863 to Jun 64.pdf/390

 382 glancing keenly at the middle-aged woman seated there. She paid no attention to him; she was allowing her anger to effervesce. It was too dark for either to discern the features of the other; a loss not felt, as they were strangers. He went again to the door, propped himself against its post, and stood peering down the South Wennock road, softly whistling.

“Dobson,” he called out, as the driver of the omnibus came in sight to look after his patient horses, “did you see my servant anywhere as you came along? I sent him orders to be here to meet the train.”

“Naw sir, I didn’t see nothing on him,” was Dobson'e reply. “Like to take advantage of the ‘bus, sir?—it be a-going back empty.”

“No, thank you,” replied Mr. Carlton, some sarcasm in his tone. “You had the chance of bumping me to a jelly once; I don’t intend to give it you a second time.”

“That was afore I knowed who your was, sir. I don’t bump our gentry. I takes care of my driving when I’ve got any of them inside.”

“They may trust you if they will. If my carriage is not here shortly, I shall walk.”

Dobson, seeing no chance of a customer, ascended to his seat, whipped up his horses, and set off home; his hat bobbing upwards with his speed, and his omnibus flying behind him.

By this time it wanted ten minutes to seven: the period, as Mrs. Smith had been informed, when she could get her ticket. She deposited the live bundle at the very back of the wide sofa, and went to procure it. Mr. Carlton turned in at the door again, whistling still, when a faint, feeble cry was heard to proceed from the sofa.

It brought him and his whistling to a standstill. He stood looking at the sofa, wondering whether his ears had deceived him. The cry was repeated.

“Why, bless my heart, if I don’t believe it is a child!” he exclaimed

Approaching the sofa, he dived into the wrappings and flannels, and felt something warm and soft. He could not see; the obscurity was too great, although a distant lamp from the platform shed its rays partially in. Mr. Carlton drew some wax matches from his pocket; struck one, and held its light over the face of the child. He had rarely in his life seen so small a one, and the little thing begun to cry as Mrs. Smith come in.

“So you have woke up, have you!” cried she. “It’s an odd thing to me that you could sleep through the doings of that wicked omnibus. Come along, baby; five minutes yet before we get into the train.”

“I thought magic must be at work, to hear a human cry from what looked like a packet of clothes,” said Mr. Carlton. “I lighted a match to make sure whether it was a child or a rabbit.”

“It is as much like a rabbit as a child yet, poor little thing; I never saw such a baby born.”

“It is not at its full time,” observed Mr. Carlton.

“Full time!” repeated Mrs. Smith, who had by no means recovered the equanimity that had been shaken out of her, and resented the remark as an offence. “Who are you, young men, that you should offer your opinion to me? What do you know of infants, pray?”

“At least as much as you, my good lady,” was the answer, given with unruffled equanimity. “I have brought plenty of them into the world.”

“Oh, then, you are a doctor, I suppose,” she said, somewhat mollified.

“Yes, I am a doctor; and, as a doctor, I will tell you that little specimen of humanity is not fit to travel.”

“I don’t say it is; but necessity has to do many things without reference to fitness.”

“When was it born?”

“Yesterday morning. Sir, have you any influence in this neighbourhood?”

“Why do you ask?” returned Mr. Carlton.

“Because, if you have, I hope you will use it to put down that dangerous omnibus. The way it jolts and rattles over the road is enough to kill anybody who’s inside of it. I went by it to South Wennock this morning, and that was bad enough, as the other passengers could testify; but in coming back by it this evening I did really think I should have lost my life. Jolting one’s head up to the roof, taking one’s feet off the floor, jolting one’s body against the sides and seat! I shall be sore all over for a week to come; and the more I knocked and called, the faster the sinner drove. And I with this baby to protect all the while.”

“It is a shame,” replied Mr. Carlton. “What surprises me is, that South Wennock does not rise against it. There’ll be some serious result one of these days, and then it will be altered.”

“The serious result has come,” wrathfully returned Mrs. Smith. “A young lady, hardly fit to travel in an easy carriage, went in the omnibus to South Wennock last Friday, and, the consequence was the birth of this poor little infant.”

“Indeed! And what of her?”

“Well, she is going on all right, as it happens; but it might have been just the other way, you know.”