Page:Comin' Thro' the Rye (1898).djvu/503

Rh the two consult together; but, oh! I know that Wattie has been called, that he is going—I knew it from the very first If no one had cared whether he lived or died, he would have lived; as he is more to me than life itself, he is going fast. His sweet broken babble grows fainter and weaker, then dies altogether. The doctors look down on him in silence. Not all their cunning can breathe life into this beautiful little body—only the Great Physician can do that, and he is drawing hourly nearer; every minute sees a fresh change on the face of my boy.

They go away, these men, saying they will come back presently; they need not come, for they will be wanted by Wattie never any more.

He has always known me right through: he knows me now, and smiles at me with his parched, dried lips, as I give him some cooling drink; he shall be troubled with no more medicine, no more, little Wattie you had little enough of it in your short three-year-old young life. He has never been fretful or wilful, or complaining in this illness as other children are; if he had only shown some of his old masterful little ways, I should not feel so sure but he just lies on my knees, fading away before my eyes, and as he grows fainter and weaker a passionate cry rises from my bitter wrung heart: "If he must go, let me go with him!" But my prayer passes unheeded. I am strong and well, only sick with weeping, worn with watching and fasting, brought to the lowest depths of misery by having the child taken from me; and so it falls that on the third night (he has been very quick about it, my little Wattie, who was always so loth to leave me for an hour even) as he lies on my lap, about six of the clock, he opens his beautiful brown eyes, his hand flutters a little in mine, and as I hang over him in agonized, breathless dread, "Dood-bye, Lallie!" he says; a loving smile flickers over his face for a moment, then he is gone.